Raise your hand if you’ve received an overly friendly email from a stranger, asking you for a favor.
Everyone? I thought so.
Why do these bug us so much? Aside from the fact that we’re busy enough trying to do our own work, balanced with some personal time, and fitting in helping out people we actually know, the reason is that when a stranger asks us for a favor they’re doing so without having any relationship equity.
Continue Reading Build Relationship Equity First
How can we network better?
Many posts offer the same tips, spun in a different way – and that’s important, because I can always get something out of implementing the tried and true. But when I find something unique, I’m always happy to share it.
Recently, I came across this piece from Branding Magazine, with “5 Tips to Network Like the Pros.” Despite all of the change happening in the legal industry, we still know that relationships are paramount – and maybe even more so than ever.
Bearing that in mind, let’s work on supercharging our networking. Branding Magazine offers 5 tips, but let’s take a look at two of them, and how they relate to the legal industry.
Continue Reading Two Easy Tips to Power Network Like a Pro
Who wants to think about work while they’re on vacation?
I know, the idea is to get AWAY from work. And I fully endorse that. But there are two things I know to be true:
With those two things in mind, you can start implementing the following business development tips during your summer vacation and set yourself up for future success!
Continue Reading Nine Business Development Tips to Practice on Your Summer Vacation
Recently, I had the opportunity to write a piece for JD Supra’s Perspectives, on 5 Ways a Law Firm Network Can Make Your Firm More Successful. Sure, I’m a little bit biased, but here’s how I feel:
Over the last decade, we’ve seen a titanic shift in the legal industry, and one thing I know for sure is that we’ve all got to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Change, innovation, disruption – it’s all here to stay, and how it shakes out will be different for each law firm and law firm client.
What we do know is that the client is king – they always were, but now they know it too. And that means clients expect their firms to get creative about ways and means to provide value. This can be accomplished in a myriad of ways, depending on your strategy, goals, and clients, but a piece of that puzzle is the law firm network.”
Continue Reading 3 Ways to Find the Right Network for Your Law Firm
Avid readers of Zen will know that one of my favorite topics is networking. So I was immediately drawn to read J. Kelly Hoey‘s new book, Build Your Dream Network: Forging Powerful Relationships in a Hyper-Connected World, when Mark Beese recommended it in his latest newsletter. I’ve been following Kelly since the early days of Twitter, so her name was also familiar to me, though not her story. She started her career as a lawyer in Toronto, and has wandered a fascinating path since then. Her book jacket tells us that:
J. Kelly Hoey is a writer, investor, connector, and networking expert, lauded everywhere from Forbes (“1 of 5 Women Changing the World of VC/Entrepreneurship”) to Fast Company (“25 Smartest Women on Twitter”). A columnist for Inc.com, she’s appeared on CNBC’s Power Pitch, and her clients include The New Yorker, Coca-Cola, PBS, L’Oréal, Capital One, and Dove.”
Using her own experiences, as well as sharing direct interviews with other successful friends and peers, Kelly illustrates how to build and leverage various networks, and what works and what doesn’t when it comes to networking. Whether you love to network, view it as a necessary evil, or can’t understand why you need to do anything besides work hard at your chosen profession to get more work, this book is for you. Let’s talk a little bit about what Kelly has to say about networking, and then run, do not walk, to buy this book (available in hard copy and electronic).
Continue Reading Build Your Dream Network: A Book Review
I am a couple of days late with this, due to travel, but nonetheless, happy 8th blogiversary to Zen & the Art of Legal Networking! It’s a bit hard to believe that 8 years ago I wrote my first post (Is the Billable Hour on its Way Out? – spoiler alert, it’s still dragging on), and the last eight years have been quite the roller coaster ride, teaching me an endless number of things about networking, writing, discipline, social media, and so much more.
Some fun stats for you – eight years has brought us:
Continue Reading Happy 8th Blogiversary to Zen & the Art of Legal Networking!
The ILN is extremely fortunate to have not only a lot of talented lawyers, but a number of other talented professionals as well. Included in that group are the hardworking marketing professionals at our member firms across the world. This year, I wanted to highlight some of their expertise in a series of guest posts here on Zen. Our first one comes from Director of Marketing with the ILN’s Illinois member, Arnstein & Lehr, Robin Iori. In today’s post, Robin is addressing the topic of business development training for associates, and this is a timely one for many law firms in the market. One of the hottest trends that came out of the submissions from this year’s crop of Your Honor Awards was an increased focus on young lawyers, and that bears out with what I’ve seen and heard in my daily engagement with firms as well. So as Robin says, when it comes to business development training for your associates, it’s never too soon to start.
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Introducing the concept of business development to eager, young associates in a law firm can produce a variety of responses. One response is the “deer-in-the-headlights” eyes that ask with trepidation, “I have to do this already?” Then, there’s the furrowed brow look that may be saying, “Did I miss an email about this?” Or, there’s the response that involves nodding the head in agreement during the meeting and sheer panic once the meeting ends.
It’s not as if the topic of business development is new to the legal community today. Law schools still are not giving the subject as much attention as they could, but at least young lawyers know that ultimately they will come face to face with the concept if they join a law firm.
Continue Reading Associate BD Training: It’s Never Too Soon to Start
2017 is here and that means a fresh, clean slate, right?
I like fresh starts, and I like that I feel like I get two of them during the year – one in January with the advent of a new year, and one in September when the school year begins again (even though I’m not in school anymore). But with 2017, I’m struggling to feel rejuvenated. It could be the two solid days of rain we’ve had to kick off this week, or the tough slog that was 2016, but whatever the reason, I’m just not feeling it this week.
I suspect that I might not be alone in this, so in today’s post, we’re going to be looking at some ways we can generate a little inspiration this week if you’re struggling (or even if you’re not!). And if it takes us a few weeks to get our fresh start, then that’s okay too. I’m all about a kinder, gentler 2017, so if we don’t get a perfect jump start right out of the gate, that’s what second chances are for.
As we dive into our three inspirations, huge thanks goes out to my friend, Lance Godard, who helped me formulate a germ of an idea into a palatable post today!
Continue Reading Three Ways to Inspire Your Marketing in 2017
Has everyone got their “fa la la” on yet?
While the holidays are often a mad rush for all of us, it seems that this year especially, everyone is behind with wrapping up their end of the year duties (and wrapping up their gifts), while we try to figure out shortcuts for how to manage to get everything done before family and friends descend on us (or you head out the door yourself). In among all of the holiday madness are your professional pressures, which, of course, take priority.
So rather than a thought-provoking, meaty post today, let’s look at some (mostly) quick ways that you can engage with your clients and other relationships – these can be done over the holidays, if you find you have some down time and you want to get a jump on 2017, or they can be things that you pencil into your schedule for next year. While the options for engagement are endless, and many of them are really in-depth, today, we’re going to focus on some of the simple ideas that can add a little boost to your relationships.
Continue Reading 7 Ways Lawyers Can Build More Engagement Over the Holidays
Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of serving as a judge for the Legal Marketing Association’s Your Honor Awards. These awards are the “longest-running annual international award program recognizing excellence in legal marketing,” and it’s the second time I’ve been able to serve as a judge. I enjoy it not only because of the camaraderie among my fellow judges, but because I get to see some of the smartest work in the industry, and get a sense of how firms and other professional services organizations in the legal industry are meeting the challenges that we face every day.
When we judge the selection of entries, we’re each given a few categories that we’re responsible for scoring, based on a list of criteria, and then we get together for a weekend in early January to review the entries with our fellow category judges, and then as a group. We then award first, second, third, and honorable mention as appropriate – and we have the option to award no prizes at all if we don’t think the entries are worthy, so when an entrant wins a prize, they really deserve it.
Continue Reading Two Takeaways for Surveys as Content Marketing