I’ve noticed that the best rainmakers usually have really good legal administrative assistants (LAAs), and these lawyers are generally very good at engaging their LAAs in activities to nurture existing client relationships and even develop new ones.
Sally J. Schmidt - October 26, 2016I read an article recently called “Marketing Yourself as an Expert: What Clients Look For.” According to the research presented, there are five key factors that clients associate with “visible experts”:
Recently, I interviewed the partners at a law firm as part of a marketing assessment. I asked each of them whether there is any particular industry or type of client the firm should target for business. One of the lawyers said to me, “I don’t ...
Sally J. Schmidt - July 28, 2016In my experience, most lawyers who don’t have a book of business would like to have one. And, if they don’t know how to build it, they’d like to learn how. Unfortunately, there are very real obstacles to business development success. The ...
Sally J. Schmidt - June 2, 2016Let’s say you just found out you have a rare illness. Suddenly, you are in the market for a specialty physician. You do some research, get some names and make an appointment with one or two doctors. What kind of conversation would you have? My ...
Sally J. Schmidt - April 25, 2016In a feedback interview, a client told a story to explain why a particular law firm did not get the work after meeting with him. He said the firm brought a team of lawyers to the meeting and the partners were doing a good job of asking questions ...
Sally J. Schmidt - March 23, 2016Recently I was contacted by someone looking for good articles on cross-selling. I noticed that a lot of material discussed the obstacles — compensation systems, internal competition, lack of confidence in colleagues, lack of knowledge about firm ...
Sally J. Schmidt - February 24, 2016The more I conduct client feedback interviews, the more I realize how few quality contacts lawyers make with their clients outside the substantive legal work being done. The number of times clients fumble for the name of a lawyer who is actively ...
Sally J. Schmidt - January 21, 2016As the new year approaches, a lot of firms ask their lawyers to prepare annual business or marketing plans. Even without that structure, it makes sense to take a step back to reflect and assess what has worked, what hasn’t and what should be ...
Sally J. Schmidt - December 7, 2015Much has been written and said about the value of forming client teams, but a recent conversation made me realize not all lawyers understand what that actually means.
Sally J. Schmidt - October 26, 2015Sign up for our free newsletter.