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Did you know that prior to the Great Depression the Kellogg Cereal Company was the industry leader? But as the dark days of the Depression receded, C.W. Post emerged as the frontrunner, outselling the field. How did this happen? Reportedly, Post, conscious of the fact that people still had a little money to spend and mouths to feed, launched an aggressive marketing campaign while their competitors downsized their efforts in order to save money. Consequently, Post generated more “top-of-mind awareness” than their competitors which translated into significant sales.
What does this have to do with you and your practice?
In a weak economy, it’s more important than ever to generate and maintain positive top-of-mind awareness with your clients, referral sources and community. Successful rainmakers know that next to your substantive legal skills, the single most important skill that will ensure the success of your practice is your ability to attract clients. Without this, your practice will not survive in the best of times, let alone the worst.
In our combined years of experience in working with, writing about and studying what the most successful rainmakers do, we’ve noticed that the best of the best have a keen eye when it comes to identifying three important factors in the client development process: the characteristics of their most profitable clients; the types of people who influence these clients; and the actions that allow them to get to know these influencers.
Identify The Characteristics Of Your Most Profitable Clients
You can do the same. If, like most attorneys, you focus on several practice areas, identifying your best clients is slightly more complex. It’s important to think of each practice area as a separate profit center or business unit, each offering different services and serving a different type of client.
To discover the characteristics of your clients for each practice area, review your files for the last year and look at the types of people each practice area has served. Once you’ve done this, narrow your search further and identify who your best, or “A” clients are in each group.
Almost without exception your “A” clients generate 80 percent of your revenues and only take up 20 to 40 percent of your time. They pay their bills on time, cooperate with you and send referrals. Typically, these are the clients you most enjoy working with and you are best equipped to handle. To emulate the best rainmakers, study the demographics of these individuals and target their peers as the types of people you want to attract in the future. Then ask yourself, “Who Influences These “A” Clients?”
Identify The Influences On These Clients
If you were an estate planning attorney, for example, your typical “A” clients may be high net worth individuals, both self-made and highly-educated men and women, predominantly in their upper forties to early sixties who have worked hard. Perhaps they are professionals or have started their own businesses and have accumulated assets exceeding a certain threshold.
Who do these individuals typically listen to? Research shows that these individuals confide in and trust their CPAs above any other professional. In this case, CPAs are the type of referral source with the most access and influence over the kinds of clients you want to serve. Next to CPAs, business and professional associations may wield a great deal of influence in terms of which lawyers these high net worth individuals consult for their estate planning needs.
To apply this to your own practice, ask yourself who has the most influence over your clients. If you’ve captured the names of those who’ve sent you your best clients in the past, you should be able to look through your files or in your database to identify the types of people who are in a position to send you good clients in the future. Apply this exercise to your practice to come up with the types of referral sources you should be targeting.
Network
Now that you know who they are, take steps to network with these individuals. The best rainmakers aren’t shy or reticent about cultivating relationships. We recommend you begin by making two lists. On the first, write down all of your referral sources—everyone who has sent you at least one matter in the past two years. These are the people with whom you currently have some rapport. Make it your business to build and maintain rapport with this very important group of people.
Some of our more dedicated rainmakers actually create a spreadsheet to help manage this task. It contains 13 columns: one for each month, and a column on the far left listing all their best referral sources. They then keep track of the number of times each month they make contact with a particular referral source. Why go to all this trouble? Because the most successful rainmakers know that people like to do business with people they like. And for referral sources to like them, they must spend time with them. This chart or visual guide shows them at a glance who they are spending time with and who they’re not. Here’s the secret: With increased rapport comes increased referrals.
On the second list, write down the categories of people who influence your best clients. These are the people you want to target. They are in similar professions and positions as the referral sources who have proven to be good sources of business. While it may sound funny, you are, in effect, looking at which referral sources are the best and attempting to clone them.
While you are busy cultivating the first list of people—your existing referral sources—ask for introductions to the second group. While this doesn’t work when referral sources are competitive, you may be surprised to see how willingly your current referral sources help you network with people they know. Give this a try. It’s the fastest route to expanding your network.
If no introductions are possible, join organizations that are likely to be made up of your targeted referral sources. Make it your business to know where they go after work. Read what they read. Write articles for their trade journals. Attend their conferences and speak at their meetings. Hold seminars on subjects that would interest and attract them.
To keep your practice healthy and successful, you will need to maintain a minimum of three purposeful marketing contacts per week and a have a network of approximately 20 good referral sources. None of the strategies we’ve talked about is expensive, but all take an investment of your time. By diligently building “top-of-mind awareness” among your target influencers, you will start receiving more of the referrals you seek.
In these difficult economic times, don’t take the hunker-down and wait-it-out mentality favored by the Kellogg Cereal Company during the Great Depression. Clients still have issues to resolve and money to spend. See the downturn as an opportunity to raise your profile and be the C.W. Post of your legal community.
