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In today’s competitive marketplace, it is no surprise that you are working longer hours for fewer returns. You may find yourself balancing too many demands on your time, helping everyone else and leaving no time for yourself. The unfortunate result of this trend is high levels of stress and less time to spend with your family, on community interests, or on personal health. You may be racing through life without pausing to consider who you really want to be or where you really want to go.
On this journey, many lawyers fail to accept the fact that being successful today means seeing yourself as an entrepreneur as well as a technician, and seeing your practice as a client-centered enterprise, a service. Many of these same individuals amass a collection of how-to books, articles, and workbooks from seminars; but when they try to apply what they’ve learned by themselves amidst the day-to-day demands of their practice, it doesn’t work.
Because client development, or referral-based marketing, is a classic approach to law-firm marketing, lawyers are increasing turning to third-party marketing consultants or executive coaches in this area. Referral-based marketing is built on relationships, and since executive coaching subscribes to a foundation of rapport, trust and confidence, this approach can help individuals generate better leads. This can result in better clients — clients who are more loyal and less price-sensitive.
The primary reason law firms are exploring uses of executive coaching is to improve business results. This means increasing profits, reducing costs, or achieving both within a defined time frame. In the past, the only option for many law firms was to sink considerable resources into often haphazard training programs, only to see that investment vanish into a black hole from which neither people nor the law firm itself emerge with benefits. Using an executive coach is like learning to play baseball or any other sport. You can read books, watch videos or attend seminars, but until you pick up a bat and take a swing at a ball—preferably with a coach by your side—you’ll never really learn how to play.
My personal experience in coaching attorneys in referral-based marketing strategies clearly shows that you do not have to be a born rainmakers. You can actually learn new skills and strategies for growing your business – for becoming a rainmaker. A well-designed and executed coaching program can assist motivated attorneys in becoming more effective at attracting new business.
A good example of an exercise in building your business referral base starts with listing your top 20 referral sources. This exercise asks you to list the top twenty people you received business from over the past 12-months. This may seem rather straightforward, but it is only the beginning of a process to make sure you keep in touch with these valuable contacts. This can be a powerful tool that will enable you to actually, “pick up a bat and take a swing at a ball.”
Any attorney with the desire can master the referral-based marketing techniques - the skills and the disciplines required for rainmaking. The process usually starts with a needs analysis, setting individualized objectives, and the program itself may involve 3-6 months of one-to-one coaching. This type of coaching demands that attorneys stretch to become adept at the skills necessary for effective client development.
Many people believe that the future of your law firm rests with increasing the capabilities and productivity of your workforce, executive coaching may be an effective tool in helping you manage this human energy. In the end, you’ll find that this may require a fundamental shift in the way you, as lawyers live your lives. You will begin experiencing this change when you feel eager to go to work in the morning, equally happy to return home in the evening, and capable of setting clear boundaries between the two. Through personalized coaching in proven client development techniques, you will find renewed energies to grow your business in today’s demanding legal environment. Many client attorneys are actually finding that they can work less, and earn more.
Finally, executive coaching can present firm leadership with an opportunity to engage in a dialogue of development. Coaching can provide a climate within which vital, though seemingly intransigent, issues may be brought to the surface, confronted, and then dealt with. In a busy law practice, where there is no coach, the chance for this reflective dialogue may be missed. This new approach will allow you to focus more on managing energy, rather than managing your billable-time. What’s more, you will discover a renewed interest in, and love for, the practice of law.
Stephen P. Gallagher is president of LeadershipCoach.us, a coaching practice based in Philadelphia, PA. In March of this year Mr. Gallagher attended a meeting of the Elder Law Committee. As an executive coach, Gallagher works exclusively with senior attorneys, law firm leadership teams, and attorneys in transition. Stephen has over 25-years of experience in leadership training for law schools, corporate legal departments and private law firms. Gallagher is also a current member of the ABA Law Practice Management Section’s Publishing Board and Educational Board.
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