By Lindsay Griffiths on As I was scrolling through Instagram the other night, I came across a post from a former ILN lawyer (shoutout to Craig Levey) who announced that he’ll be running the Boston Marathon in 20 weeks. What’s more, he’s using those 20 weeks as an opportunity to spend a training session each week with “a local … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Over the last few years, data has become more and more popular a subject, as we try to quantify everything to do with our businesses. “Please don’t make me try to quantify my relationships TOO!” I can hear you opining. But I promise, the goal is a worthwhile one. What is always our goal when … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Daily, we interact with lots of people – this happens in person, at our offices, in the coffee shop, at our kids’ sporting events or art classes. It happens online, through our group chats, text messages with friends, Facebook shares, LinkedIn comments, etc. We interact so much and so frequently, that we’ve reached a real … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Content marketing can feel like the opportunity to be the author or podcaster or speaker that you’ve always wanted to be. But when done strategically, it’s about building relationships with clients and potential clients, and providing additional value to them that will make you top of mind when they have a matter that requires your … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on We are already facing down the last three months of 2019, and for many of us, that leaves us wondering where the year has gone, and how we can possibly meet the goals we’ve set. But rather than throwing out these last three months and deciding to start “fresh” in 2020, let’s kickstart our business … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Content marketing is a tool in your arsenal for building effective business relationships. But like any tool, it’s not going to be useful to you if you don’t use it efficiently. In the past, you could get away with producing *something* and getting the attention of a client or potential client, because you were the … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on We know and are comfortable with the idea that the legal industry is a business of relationships. Lawyers do good work, their clients talk about it (hopefully) and that brings them other clients. That’s the basic principle behind the standard “word of mouth” reputation. But with the introduction of technology, and in particular, social media, … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on I recently had the opportunity to participate in a podcast with Deirdre Breakenridge for her Women Worldwide series, discussing how to build unbreakable bonds. One of the questions she asked me to think about in advance of the session was “What is relationship marketing, and where do you start when you want to build your … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on While being interviewed for a podcast yesterday morning, the host asked me what I saw as the primary trend for the future of law firms. Although my answer is simple, the work behind it is not – collaboration. We’ve talked about Heidi Gardner’s book, Smart Collaboration, before (and I again highly recommend reading it). One … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on In most of the world, it’s been pretty hot, and many of you are either on holiday, or getting ready to leave for holiday. I know that the LAST thing you want to think about is building relationships for business development. But I’ve got an easy challenge for you that will set you up nicely … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Today, I’m bringing you a guest post on a topic near and dear to my heart – collaboration. Gareth Stephenson, of Top3Legal has a different take on it, from his experience, which may be useful as you engage further in your own collaborative efforts. *** In-house counsel are increasingly recognising the benefits of collaboration – … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on One of the questions I am asked most often is about how to manage relationships when we’re all so busy – and we are ALL so busy these days! LinkedIn is a great tool for professionals (even lawyers!) to employ to efficiently and effectively develop relationships without a huge time investment. Yes, like with any … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Remember the good old days when we just did a bunch of things and didn’t have specialized terms for them? Yep, these aren’t them. “Social media marketing” came about when social media platforms were introduced and we learned how to use online technology to build relationships that we’d previously been building offline (that’s tremendously simplified, … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on These days, it seems that everyone is looking for a quick fix to everything. How do I get clients fast? How can I do business development without being directly involved myself? How can I skip ahead to the final steps? Unfortunately, as with anything worthwhile, if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. If you … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Of all the social media platforms out there, I’d venture to say that LinkedIn is the one that lawyers are most comfortable using. It has a reputation for being the most professional, and as a result, it’s had the widest adoption within the industry. In recent years, LinkedIn has really expanded their offerings, and provided … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Depending on your business/relationship development goals and strengths, one of your strategies may be to write and share content. When you’re considering augmenting your reputation and building your practice, it might seem counterintuitive to share the spotlight with someone else by quoting or referencing them in your articles and posts, but I’m here to tell … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Networking is not an easy task, which is one of the reasons that we discuss it so frequently here on Zen. Since I’m spending this week with my lawyers in Milan, facilitating their networking efforts at our Annual Conference, I have networking on the brain, and wanted to share with you a couple of the … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Lawyers know better than most people that words matter – after all, who knows better than a contract lawyer that a nuanced clause can make or break a deal? But who knows better than your marketing team that “marketing” is a four-letter word? It shouldn’t be – and I’ll explain why in a moment. But … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Last week, we talked about channeling your inner Taylor Swift to connect with your clients – it seems silly, but no one understands her client base and instill rabid loyalty better than Taylor, and isn’t that all something we’d love to emulate with our own clients? We may not have her reputation (see what I … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Taylor Swift is my favorite client relationship genius. That may seem a bit strange, but when you drill down into the brilliant marketing and business development machine that she is, you’ll agree that there are a few things that Taylor does that create rabid loyalty among her fans – and I mean rabid. Before you … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on The curse of the marathon runner – we’re either running, or we’re talking about running. Apologies to everyone around me who isn’t a runner who’s had to suffer through my running and running-adjacent conversations over the last several months. I’m 12 days away from my first marathon (in PARIS!) and I’m both excited and anxious … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on There are some people who can talk with anyone – my brother-in-law is like that. Put him in a room with a bunch of people he doesn’t know, and he excels at connecting with them without awkward silences. But for many of us, that is unfortunately not one of our strengths. I’m a prime example … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on If we were guaranteed to get business every time we met someone new, we’d all be networking all the time, right? But instead, networking takes time, it takes finesse and relationship-building, and often, you’ll find yourself talking to someone who may not be giving your their business or they may not have business to give … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on “Authenticity” has become a dirty word in the last few years. It’s right up there with some of the other most hated buzzwords and phrases – “at the end of the day,” “thinking outside of the box,” “synergy,” “value add,” “circle back,” “bandwidth.” Are you cringing yet? But even though the word “authenticity” might make … Continue Reading
