Tag: Rainmakers

The 9 Top Habits of Successful Rainmakers, Part 3 of 3

The Rainmaker Institute

Working with more than 10,000 attorneys over the past dozen years has taught me a lot about what it takes to be a successful rainmaker. Some would argue you’re born with it; however, I believe many of these successful habits can be learned.

To read about the first six top habits of successful rainmakers, go here to access Part 1 and here to access Part 2. These are the final three:

7.  Incorporate Sales Into Daily Life

While personality is a key factor in successful selling, developing a sales mindset so that it permeates your daily activities is a key attribute for high-achieving rainmakers. These attorneys consistently:

Differentiate contracts from prospects. Listen for the signals that distinguish a real prospect from someone who is simply price shopping or worse (using you to obtain a lower fee from another lawyer).  Create a list of questions to disqualify contacts focusing on the criteria of “need, want, afford.”

Interview qualified prospects directly. Are you consistently talking directly to your prospects (versus their gatekeepers and time-wasters)? Make sure you are speaking to the real decision-maker.

Give prospects a call to action. Make sure each prospect receives one clear call to action. Make it easy for them to follow. Ask for their business!

Follow up. Have a process in place that will follow up with a thank you letter or e-mail within 24 hours of the interview. Be sure to end every interview with action steps (e.g., what each party agrees to do as next steps and when they will do it by). If you agree to do something, be sure to do it before the deadline.

8.  Answer the Question, Why Hire Us?

To be able to successfully pitch why you are the best choice, you must understand the problem the prospect sitting across from you is facing.  They are coming to you seeking a solution to a specific problem, which for you could be something you see every day, but for them are new and unique.

Don’t emphasize the kinds of services you offer, the quality of your services, the size of your law firm or your years of experience. What you need to tell prospects is the benefits they will get because they are doing business with you, the value you will provide them (value does NOT mean price) and theresults they can expect from the services you provide.

9.  Perfect the Close

One of the primary reasons that a company or person hires an attorney is to alleviate some type of “pain”. They may use words like “challenges”, “problems”, or “obstacles”, but all of the words amount to the same thing; they are experiencing discomfort; they are experiencing pain. Their “pain” is whatever they are asking your assistance with. Successfully closing a deal with a prospect relies upon your ability to identify their pain and effectively communicate how you will help them resolve it.

Some attorneys have a very bad habit of making clients feel stupid by using too many legal terms in conversation. Stay on your client’s level and always make sure they understood what you are trying to communicate.

In perfecting the close, great sales people:

  • Lead with benefits

  • Can articulate and add value to the conversation

  • Build credibility and trust

  • Are perceived as a trusted advisor

  • Identify a prospect’s wants and needs

  • Sell to the prospect’s goals

  • Focus on prospect’s gaps

  • Demonstrate how they will solve the prospect’s problems or needs

ARTICLE BY

Stephen Fairley
The Rainmaker Institute

Part 2: The 9 Top Habits of Successful Rainmakers

The Rainmaker Institute

Successful rainmakers consistently apply certain habits and characteristics to distinguish themselves from competitors and increase the revenues of their law firms.

Click here to read Part 1 for the first three top habits of successful rainmakers. Here are the next three:

4.  Mind and Grow Your Referral Network

Just like any cash crop, a referral network needs to be nurtured in order to grow. And one of the best ways to nurture your referral network is to keep educating them about your firm so they can send you great referrals.

Here are five things you need to tell them:

  1. What your perfect client looks like. Provide a detailed description of your ideal client.

  2. Why someone should hire you. Be clear about your unique competitive advantage.

  3. What problems you solve. Again, be as specific as possible.

  4. How you follow up. Tell them your process so they are comfortable with referring you.

  5. Why referrals are important to you.

In addition, you need to find unique ways to thank your referral sources and, whenever you can, reciprocate.

5.  Leverage Relationship Building Tools

Staying connected with referral sources and clients you want to hire you again and again is the hallmark of a great rainmaker.  In my experience over the dozen years of working with more than 10,00 attorneys, I’ve found one simple solution that will help you achieve this goal without much effort or expense on your part: an e-newsletter.

E-newsletters provide an easy way for you to reach out to your entire network at the same time and to keep your name and your firm in their mind. The key benefits include:

It Establishes a Dialogue – Most email marketing companies make it easy to provide links to email and social media. The easier you make it for a contact to share information, the more likely they will share it.

It’s Easy to Track – Your email marketing provider will make tracking your effectiveness simple. They know who opened your email, who opted out, who clicked through. It’s an easy way for you to find out if the newsletter is working.

Keeping Them Informed – With a newsletter, you can include information about other firm highlights you want to share. Did someone just get an award? Did a case just settle? Did someone new join the firm?

Keep in Touch – Use the newsletter to keep in touch with former clients. It will reinforce the positive impression you had on them and ensure that you are top of mind if a new issue arises.

Educate Your Clients – If you handled my divorce, then I may not think of you when it comes time to hire an estate planning attorney. That isn’t my fault though, it’s yours. Educate your past, current and future clients and referral sources about all your practice areas.

It is a long road of small interactions, but by focusing on creating a solid relationship with your network you will benefit in the end.

6.  Develop a Marketing Mindset

The Internet and social media has blown the old legal marketing model to bits, and those with the entrepreneurial mindset and vision to harness the incredible power of these modern marketing tools create their own opportunities for revenue and growth beyond their wildest dreams.

Be proactive to recognize opportunities for you and your network and keep the radar on in every aspect of your life. Marketing is not an event, it is a mindset and a lifestyle. Access every resource available to you — internal, external, memberships, friends, family, and colleagues.

ARTICLE BY

Stephen Fairley
The Rainmaker Institute

The 9 Top Habits of Successful Rainmakers, Part 1 of 3

The Rainmaker Institute

Successful rainmakers have certain habits and characteristics in common that drive them to greater levels of success. These habits and characteristics manifest themselves as key behaviors and specific actions, and understanding how to implement these actions on a consistent basis will distinguish you from your competitors and increase your revenues.

1.  Develop a Solid Personal Brand

rainmakerFor most attorneys, reputation is everything.  It used to be that attorneys gained their reputations primarily through word-of-mouth and personal interaction.  Today, building a reputation must contain an online element since this is where most people gather and interact.

A personal brand is the expression of your identity that answers the question of why clients should want to work with you. Having a niche is important in creating your personal brand. Plus, it is much easier to build your brand in a select niche than it is to stand out in a huge market like “attorneys”.   Even online, it’s important for you to niche your practice in an area that can provide living, breathing clients for your practice.

2.  Proactively Manage Digital Assets

What do prospects see when they type your name into a search engine? If it’s not much, that can often be as harmful as something negative. Here are some tips on managing your online reputation:

Update your website and social media profiles. Research shows that 76% of people searching for an attorney go online first, so your website and social media profiles are likely one of the first chances you will have to make a good first impression on a prospect. Be sure these are robust reflections of your expertise and the market you serve.

Create good, meaningful content. Wherever you are online – your law firm website, your blog, your social media networks – make sure you are creating and posting valuable and relevant content that your target prospects will find interesting and helpful.

Look and listen. Create a Google Alert for yourself and your firm so you can monitor what is being said. If you find something negative on a site that allows you to comment, do so professionally and unemotionally.

3.  Aggressively Build Contacts

Having a great contact list is key to being an effective rainmaker. While you may not realize it, you probably have more contacts than you think. Not only do you have all the contact information of the people you have done business with, you can look at your email contact addresses and also get the email addresses of those individuals you are connected with on LinkedIn. Right off the bat this will give you a bigger database then you thought.

You can also begin to speak, attend networking events or create Free Reports that motivate people to give you their contact information in order to get valuable information back.

In addition, any time you meet someone or someone calls your office, get their contact information so you can begin to communicate with them on a regular basis in a meaningful way.

To succeed at building contacts, you need to err on side of inclusivity in all your interactions. Be clear on your follow-up systems, maintain a process for adding new contacts and regularly review contact lists for updates.

ARTICLE BY

Stephen Fairley
The Rainmaker Institute