Client Development Coaching What Are You Doing Differently

Developing the Next Generation of Rainmakers Client Development Coaching: What Are You Doing Differently? I have written many blog posts since I started 8 plus years ago. I sometimes wonder if any of you reading this one were with me when I first started. Over the years, I have found that some of the very best posts come from lawyers I have coached. This is one of them. I hope you find it helpful. Client development coaching is about making changes. If you worked with me, what are you doing differently? In many firms, I have the chance to work with several groups of lawyers over many years, If the first group is successful, then lawyers vie to be part of the next group. A few years ago I finished working with a group of lawyers at a firm and at the last group meeting I asked each lawyer to describe what he or she is doing differently now. Later I asked the lawyers to share their ideas with the lawyers in the next coaching group. Here is what one lawyer told the next group: About six years ago, I didn’t do any regular exercise. I’d go on hikes and campouts occasionally, but didn’t do anything habitually. I decided that needed to change, and I started going for walks every day around my  neighborhood. I didn’t look or feel any differently right away. I just  knew from common sense this had to be a good idea. Within a few months,  however, I had taken up jogging. I had probably never run more than a  couple of miles at one time in my life. Now I’m devoted to running and  it has benefited my life enormously on many different levels. I jogged  18 miles this past Saturday as I am gearing up for a marathon next  month. Client development coaching for me has been like my progression in running. It got me to start taking walks around my professional  â€œneighborhood,” and now I’m beginning to move from walking to an  occasional run, and I’m noticing some results here and there. Weaving client development into your professional routine will help you make  marketing a monthly, weekly, and eventually daily occurrence. If you’re  already marketing your services, client development coaching can potentially help you  do it better. If in all honesty, you haven’t been marketing yourself, client development coaching can  potentially inspire you and give you ideas about how  to start. To tap into that potential, learn from your colleagues in the coaching program,    share your successes with each other. Give some thought to  your meetings with Cordell â€" if you have an idea, share it with him.  Once in a while, he’ll pat you on the back and say, “That sounds great.”  The other 99 times, he’ll provide a suggestion that will make a good  idea great. Cordell taught me how to do little things better: Handwritten notes,  e-mails of articles, small gifts, etc. This past December, I can’t tell  you how pleased I was to get several phone calls and messages from  client contacts laughing appreciatively about the perfect gift I had  sent them. Not one of these gifts was expensive. Every one of them was  thoughtful in the literal sense of the word. Client development coaching made me willing to take the risk of doing big things. One of  the first things I did after getting involved with coaching program was to get  on an airplane and went to see someone with whom I had worked on a fairly large  case that had concluded roughly a year before. Quite frankly, it  knocked me out of the office for a couple of days and it yielded no  tangible results. Yet, I learned from the experience, and most  importantly, I developed a willingness to risk my time in the pursuit of  richer relationships with business contacts. This led to a later, much  more time intensive trip that actually led to a couple of files getting  overnighted to my desk, along with a slew of new business contacts to  build upon. Client development  is not a mathematical formula â€" we might all wish it were so  easy. Things that work for you might not work for me. No one    is going to tell you precisely how you can get from Point A to  Point B. That is at once frightening and liberating. Be open-minded,  be patient, and be willing to ease outside of your comfort zone. Congratulations on becoming part of a terrific firm initiative. So, what is your takeaway from Keith’s advice to his firm’s next coaching group?   I practiced law for 37 years developing a national construction law practice representing some of the top highway and transportation construction contractors in the US.