Practice Management

I received a number of these questions of late.  They go beyond or beneath the general answers to the question of how you market by networking, to exactly how do you market by networking?  How do you make introductions?  How should you approach someone?  These readers are wanting to know not so much weather they should dive into the pool, but how to dive into the pool. What is the proper method?  One reader told me that he did not want "come off as a huckster".  I understand that.  Neither do I.  And, the good news is you do not have to be a huckster.

The problem I detect is that we all looking at network marketing too scientifically.  We are looking at it as being too formal.  Too systematic.  It should not be.  This is the mistake.  Making effective contact should not be equivalent to learning dance moves where you place an image of the steps you are to take on the floor and follow them until you have it down.  There is actually very little to learn.  Most of what network marketing requires is just relaxing and being your informal self.  The process does not have to be unenjoyable, and trying to make it a formal process will make it so.  Go to meetings and functions, have some food, have something to drink, pick up some CLE, learn something new, mingle and just meet some really good and interesting people in the process.  If they can help you, fine.  If they cannot help you, well then you have learned something new or filled your tummy, or had an interesting conversation with someone.  Because we make this sound harder than it is, we prevent ourselves from venturing out like we should

The other problem I detect is the belief that networking marketing will bring you gobs and gobs of new clients and cases.  On occasion I guess that will happen.  I once met an attorney who picked up a major national lender and quadrupled his practice almost overnight, but that is not really the goal.  Third Wave attorneys do not need oodles of clients and cases.  You need a good consistent few and you need to obtain them with as little fuss, selling and costs as possible.  That is the why we need to market ourselves through networking, because it is the most cost effective way to get the work we want.  Referred clients are already more comfortable with you.  They are more trusting of you.  Most are already pre-qualified.  So, they are just better clients than, let us say, advertised for clients.

As to the ease of the technique, let me just say that I have found over the years that 90% of success is just consistently showing up at the groups, organizations and functions that can help you.  Just being seen sometimes is all you need.  You do not need to go into a meeting or a group or a function and believe that you need to confront so many people before you leave.  Again, just be yourself.  Just bum around.  Say hi.  Engage in the conversations small groups are having.  You can literally market yourself by babbling, going astray, floating about, mooching, talking nonsense with others, and going with the flow.  Just having a good ol' time.  It is easy because it is all about being you, and it is hard when you are trying to comply with some network marketing textbook.

As for me, I am the most laid back network marketer in the World.  I just mingle about, circulate around, hang out, snack, have lunch and just naturally blend into conversations here and there.  Conversations, by the way that hardly ever concern what I do.  I do not try to rub shoulders, hobnob, buddy up to or fraternize with others.  I do not have to because I have found that if you are there, people are just naturally curious.  If you are sitting in between peole, or they are talking about the weather and you say, "boy, did it pour at my house yesterday", they will almost always ask you what you do.  Then I tell them something like, "Bankruptcy courts issue stays and injunctions telling creditors and collectors what they cannot do.  When these stays and injunctions are violated, I enforce them.  Bankruptcy attorneys refer me cases for a lot of reasons, such as they are a witness in the case, they are not set up to handle adversary proceedings, or they have a conflict."  And, then I usually ask the same of them.  Along the way I will find a time to hand them my business card, and I will ask them if they have one.  If not I ask them to write down their information on the back of one of my cards.  If they hand me a card, I check to see if there is a an email address.  If not, I will will ask them for that information and write it on their card.

Over the years I have learned that the biggest mistake you can make is to spend the entire time engaged in a one-way conversation.  Talking about you and your services will only serve to isolate your potential referral source.  Instead, you need to engage your potential referral source around how the two of you can work toward achieving a common goal. and around their interests.  This works best because it tends to break down the barriers that exist whenever meeting someone for the first time, it shows you have more than your own self-interest in mind, and it helps the dynamics of the situation by engaging in dialog.

Then of course, when I get back to the office I will send the person a short email saying how nice it was to meet them at the meeting, conference or whatever, and that email will link to what I do.

If you chose your groups, organizations and functions well, that dialog might trail off into other areas away from what you do, and that is fine.  Often, the conversation will remind the potential referral source of a situation or a question, which will itself lead to a referral.  If that is the case, when I follow up with an email, I will remind them about the possible referral.  Often times, the conversation can be viral in the sense it will spread through the group or cluster of people involved in the conversation or of those coming up to make introductions later in the conversation.  Somebody comes up and tells says to someone in the group, "Hey Bob, you old rascal, how have you been doing".  Bob will say, "fine ... and you?"  Then Bob will say, "Fred, do you know Chuck?  He sues creditors that violate the automatic stay".

Then, as you come to know more people in these groups and organizations, and in these functions, it becomes easier because you start to operate in a shorthand manner.  "Bob!  Fred!  You old coots. Why haven't ya' sent me some bidness"?  Just showing up reminds them of cases on which they need help or assistance.

It does not matter if these people have other relationships with those to whom the prefer to send cases.  Relationships change over time.  It should not cause you to be standoffish or to avoid these people.  You have to be there when the other relationship change.  If you are in the real estate closing business and a Realtor tells you that they have a relationship with so-in-so over at ABC Title, you can say, "Oh, that's okay, I just want to be friends.  Business is important, but it is important for me to just know I have a Realtor like you of which I can as a question now and then.  If you are happy with ABC Title, I certainly understand.  If you would like to let me look at a closing now and then, I would appreciate that as well."  Then move on to other things like, "You know, one another Realtor told me that they did not believe that holding an open house has any effect on a sale.  I know there are a couple schools of thought on this.  What is your thought?"

And finally, we do not take these relationships for granted.  We follow up using email, faxes, phone calls, mailer and the like constantly. Continuing with the real estate apology, you might get some steerage from the Realtor tomorrow, next week, next year or never.  The important point is that they know who you are and that you are friendly and helpful when it really does not cost you anything.  Send them your reminders and have a good word for them when you meet because you do not know when their contact at ABC Title dies, gets fired, gets indicted, moves to a title company they cannot stand, divorces their sibling, botches the closing of a lifetime, and it matters that you have stayed in contact with them along the way.

So, the long and shot to this is that network marketing is not hard. It is natural, and it can be almost as easy as just breathing.  If you make it too difficult, if you make it too complicated, you take all of the fun out of it.