Networking & Business Development

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If you’re a regular reader of Zen, you’ll know that I love to look outside of the legal industry to find ideas for how we can market and develop business differently. With that in mind, I’d like to share a story with you – bear with me, and I’ll explain the legal connection.

If you read my Twitter profile, you’ll see that one of the ways I describe myself is as "crazy about my bassets." I have two basset hounds (Barney and Oliver), and like any good pet parent, I love to take photos of them. I share a lot of these shots on social media, and have been tagging them with various hashtags (such as #bassetboys, #bassets, #bassethounds, and #dogsofinstagram). 

I don’t have children yet, so I dress my dogs up for Halloween – basset hounds are very particular looking dogs, and seeing their faces when they have on hats, sweaters, costumes, etc. always gives me a good laugh. 

So on Friday, I shared a couple of photos of my dogs, in their costumes (including the one above), which led to a conversation with Purina. It played out as follows: 

Continue Reading Lawyers: Reach Out and Touch Someone

The truth is, I’m a BIG fan of Starbucks, so I’m predisposed to love this commercial.  But I think there’s a very important message that we at law firms can learn from this ad, and communicate through our own marketing (without even needing a commercial of our own). 

Watch the spot, and see if you can guess what I mean: 

//www.youtube.com/embed/LZVCLVGymmo?list=UUj4nCgtjKJppK_IZeY8TUJgContinue Reading “Meet Me at Starbucks” – What We Can Learn

It’s Monday, so that means that the 2014 ILN European Regional Meeting is officially in the books. I want to offer a special thanks to our hosts at Okland & Co DA, and especially their managing partner, Tom Carsten Troberg.

As I was flying home yesterday, I had the opportunity to ruminate on the conference, and the takeaways I gained from the various presentations and social functions, and I wanted to share those with you today!

  • There is really no substitute for face-to-face relationship building: As you know, I love social media, and think of it as a great bridge for keeping connections going in between face-to-face interactions.

    But there’s no substitute for seeing your connections from around the world in person, talking about personal and professional things, laughing together, and experiencing a new city together. Not only do you get to know each other better (and get a richer understanding of the challenges and cultural differences facing your colleagues in other cities), but you leave with a warm feeling that reminds you to think of them first when making referrals or getting ready to pitch a client. So never think that your online or phone efforts will ever compare to time spent in each other’s company.

    Shared experiences will always win the day – particularly when those experiences involve Aquavit tastings and a mutual fear of lutefisk.

Continue Reading Takeaways from the 2014 ILN European Regional Meeting

It’s September, so you know what that means…it’s prime time to re-ignite your networking efforts! For many ILN members, they’ll have the chance to do that this week, as our European Regional Meeting kicks off in Oslo on Thursday. 

While we’ve covered a lot of networking tips in the past, I’m always on the hunt for new ideas and advice to switch things up.  I recently came across this post that offers seven tips for networking success, Let’s look at a few of them, and how they apply to lawyers and law firms. 

There’s More Than One Way to Skin a Cat

There’s more than one way to skin a cat, as they say, and there’s more than one place to do your networking.  As the post suggests: 

Attend events at professional organizations that relate to your expertise or industry, but don’t be content with that."

Continue Reading Let’s Get Networking!

In less than a week, it will be September 1st. I like to think of September as a brand new start, much like the school year used to be. It’s a chance to begin again and look at your goals and plans with a fresh set of eyes. 

I want you to consider these last four months of 2014 as the "end zone" for your business development efforts this year. Yes, business development is an ongoing effort, and it doesn’t end simply because the calendar year wraps up.  But I’ve found that when I have ongoing projects, giving myself firm deadlines to complete them motivates me far more than having some abstract end date. 

There will likely be three groups of you reading this post – those who started the year with business development plans and goals, who split them up throughout the year and made progress on them; those of you who had those plans, but who may have only made some inroads here and there; and those of you who had no plans or goals set at all. But no matter where you are, think of September as your do-over month, and the opportunity to plan for the remainder of the year. Continue Reading The End Zone of Business Development

Yesterday, the LMA Social Media SIG group was treated to a wonderful webinar, which focused on the 2014 State of Digital and Content Marketing Strategy survey done by Greentarget, Zeughauser Group, and ALM. The webinar featured John Corey (@jecorey), the president and founder of Greentarget, and Mary K. Young (@MaryKYoungZG), a partner at Zeughauser Group. 

But more than just discussing the survey itself, Mary and John talked about how law firms can get noticed in a sea of content.  We’re operating in an era of information overload, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change any time soon, so this is incredibly important. 

They laid the foundation for their later discussions by taking a look at the 2014 survey.  The survey focused on in-house counsel for the fourth year in a row, but also added in a law firm CMO/marketer element this year.  They had 189 in-house respondents, which include GCs, Deputy GCs, etc, and 79 law firm CMO/marketer responses, from the top 350 firms. 

For the GCs, they wanted to drill down to find out how they are using social media, and what content they find most valuable. For the CMOs, they asked more about how they are approaching content at their firms. Continue Reading Standing Out in a Sea of Content: A Webinar Recap

On Friday, I received an email from someone I don’t know – like everyone, I get LOTS of these, but this one struck me. He must read my blog, because he mentions it in his note. He even manages to spell my name correctly. 

However, the purpose for his email is to tell me about this blog post he wrote, to suggest that I use it as the subject matter of a blog post, and that I tweet out his link to my Twitter followers. In fact, he goes so far as to mention that his is a topic worthwhile of discussion by the entire legal blogosphere. Really?

Well, I’m certainly not biting.

And why not? Perhaps his article is interesting, even provocative. Perhaps I will have something to say in response, or thoughts to add.  But for me, he’s broken a cardinal rule, and asked for a favor without having any relationship equity at all. 

Relationship and social equity are things we’ve talked about here before – we’ve defined "social equity" as "how you build your credibility online to increase your perceived value by others." So, by extension, I would say that relationship equity is how you build your credibility in general to increase your perceived value.  Further, the more relationship equity you have, the stronger the bond is. 

Continue Reading Building Relationship Equity *Must* Come First

Well, August is finally here – this gal loves the cooler temps of the fall, pumpkin spiced lattes, sweaters, and falling leaves, so August is not my favorite month.  But it’s a good one to take advantage of.  A LOT of people take their vacations in August – and for those of us with a lot of European clients, August can be a pretty quiet month if you’re stuck sitting at your desk. 

So now is the time to tackle anything that may fall to the wayside once September hits and things pick up again.  And that’s where this week’s Two for Tuesdays comes in.

Tip One: Make a Change

August is a good time to look around you and see what may not be working so well, and this can take a number of different tacks…Continue Reading Two for Tuesdays: Make the Most out of Your August

This afternoon, I was reading an article on four suggestions for rules to follow when networking internationally.  The tips are good ones (and we’ll go into more on them in a moment), but it occurred to me as I was reading that they’re actually quite good tips for all types of networking – whether you’re meeting people from other cultures, or just two blocks away. 

The author of the article, Pierre Brais, puts these in a certain order, but I’m going to prioritize them a bit differently. For me, everything starts with "Do your homework." 

Do Your Homework

Whether you’re meeting someone in your own city, or from a city halfway around the world, it pays to do your homework: on the individual, on their business, and on the culture. With so much information available online these days, there’s no excuse for not being adequately prepared.  Before meeting someone, take some time to search for their name online – look through their LinkedIn profile, and find out what outside interests they might have, the types of responsibilities that fall under their purview at their current position, and what other organizations they may have worked for and with. Continue Reading Let’s Be a Little More International in Our Networking