If you plan your approach to the market well and then execute on that plan, you will almost certainly get business.  If you skip the planning, but do get out in the market and work hard at developing business, you still have a good chance of succeeding.  But if you plan without executing, you will fail.  Rain making depends on actions more than on plans.

This seems so obvious; I would be embarrassed to mention it, except I have seen so many examples of failures due to planning at the expense of doing that I feel obliged to say something. 

It takes many forms:

Bit of Brilliance - There is the bit-of-brilliance version to which high-end attorneys and management consultants are particularly susceptible.  The professional suffers from the delusion that he must demonstrate his brilliance in all encounters with clients and prospective clients.  No contact can be made with the market without a bit of brilliance at the ready.  This is a hard standard to meet and chokes off most activity. 

The rainmakers in their firms don’t share this standard, recognizing that attentive listening, common sense, and genuine caring for the client are quite acceptable substitutes for brilliance much of the time.  Pointing this out to bit-of-brilliance proponents has little impact, because sitting in their offices thinking deep thoughts helps them avoid the hard work of developing business.
 
Account Team Game - There is also a group version of endless planning without action.  I call it the account team game.  The representatives from each practice who are supposed to develop a specific account meet monthly to plan the next month’s activities.  Each month, the members all report that they were too busy to execute last month’s plans, they plan the coming month, and repeat the process thirty days later. This may be a slight exaggeration, but not much of one. 

It can be hard to get out of mental traps like these, if you are in one.  Try the following:

• Force yourself to talk with at least one person from a client or prospective client organization a day beyond those you must talk to as a part of paid work. This can be a phone call or a face-to-face meeting.
• Make an easy call first.  If you plan to call several people, calling someone who will welcome your call gets you in motion the way jogging a few steps before running does.
• If you have planned for half an hour, force yourself to make one phone call before planning any more.
• Combine planning with doing.  Ask clients for their reaction to the elements of your plan.  This will make your plan better and increase your activity level.  Many clients like having their advice sought. 

Rainmakers feel discomfort when they haven’t been able to make calls, just as you do when you have postponed some client work too often because of other urgent matters.  You know that if you don’t get to the client work, there will be a high price to pay later in the form of an unhappy client.  The rainmakers know that if they keep putting off their activities in the market, there will be insufficient work to keep everyone employed.  They know they must call and meet with enough people in the market today to avoid that pain tomorrow.

I am back from vacation and will be posting at least twice a week again, starting Monday, August 4.

In a previous posting, I observed that if there is an easy way to do any of the many tasks that business development requires, use it.  There are no extra points for doing it the hard way.  There are also no extra points for originality. 
Doing something that is tried and true is usually faster, cheaper, and less risky than doing something original.

Faster.  Cheaper. Safer. 

You get these benefits whether you adapt a tactic from a mentor, colleague, or competitor.  It’s faster, because you have to spend less time figuring out how to make a tactic work—the learning curve is shorter. 

In an earlier posting, I described how to get a good seat at a conference or association dinner.  If using one of these techniques saves you from having to figure out how to get a good seat by yourself, you will see results from attending such events sooner. 

If reading how rainmaker Dennis Donovan targeted speakers at such events gets you in front of a speaker who is also a prospective client sooner, the amount you spend on events before you see results will likely be less. 

Competition among professional firms grows more intense every year.  In this environment, learning from competitors is not just legitimate; it’s essential. In this environment, taking a technique that works for one of the firm’s professionals and using it in your market with your clients may give you just the edge you need to win.  Watch what your colleagues and competitors do.  Watch other people who sell to the same people you do.

Many of the postings in this blog are designed to help you adapt tactics that have worked for others to help you win business.  Suggestion:  Read the following postings and see if you can adapt one of the lessons learned to developing business for your practice:

•  Three Ways to Get a Good Seat
•  Rainmaker Story #6: Jane’s Lunch, or A Lesson in Dominoes Networking
•  Rainmaker Story #3: The Stalker
• Rainmaker Story #8: Joan’s Brain Trust, an Example of Fast-Track Networking
•  How a Rainmaker Writes a Letter of Introduction Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3)
•  Asking for Referrals
• Generating Leads: And How are Things with You?
• Networking Up and Networking Up, Part 2: How Rainmakers Move Up in the Client Organization
• Making Time for Business Development  and Making Time for Business Development #2 – Two-for-One Marketing

Dave was one of the most successful managing partners of a professional firm that I have known.  When he first took the job, the firm was in desperate shape, losing both money and talent.  He turned it into a highly profitable firm with a reputation for having one of the best cultures in its profession.  When he retired, it was many times larger than when he had taken the top job and still growing.

And on top of this, he made it pour.  Among the new business attributable to him was a steady flow of work from one account that ranked as one of the firm’s top three clients year after year.  By the time he retired, he had been working the account for almost thirty years and had a close relationship with the man who was now chairman of the client company that went back almost as far. 

They had met early in both their careers when Dave was given responsibility for handling a matter at the client company.  The person in charge of the client team was a young, high-potential manager assigned to the task as a way to give him experience rapidly.  The man impressed Dave by his competence and ambition.  Dave decided to stay in touch with him after the initial matter was settled.

I asked Dave how much time this took.  Very little, he responded.  Most years he was doing other work at this client and would have breakfast or lunch with him every six months.  In the few years that he didn’t have work at the client, they would have a short phone conversation twice a year. 

When the man became president and later CEO and chairman, their relationship went back over twenty years.  The chance that a competitor would take this account away were slim.  How different it would have been, if Dave had let the relationship go cold for fifteen years and then sought to rekindle it when the man became president!

How many rising stars do you know?  Don’t lose sight of them for an instant!

Many aspiring rainmakers are surprised how easy rain making can be. 

The logic of it, as I have stated many times, is deceptively simple:  If you meet the right people, stay in front of them by being helpful, and remind them from time to time of what you do, you will get new business. 

The challenge of rain making derives from trying to keep many parts moving all at once.  If you have a networking relationship with several hundred people, each at a different stage of development and requiring customized treatment, managing the complexity tests one’s ability.

So, it’s wise to take advantage of easy ways to maintain and advance relationships.  There are, after all, no extra points for doing it the hard way.  A professional grasping that there are many easy, little things she can do to advance relationships signals a major advance along her track to rainmakerhood.

Here are some easy things rainmakers do:

Arrive early - A rainmaker named John, like many others, would arrive at client meetings early, so he could drop by the offices of people he was not scheduled to see that day in order to spend five to ten minutes catching up with them.  These visits kept him top of mind with these people, keeping relationships warm and keeping him up to date with happenings at the client.

Some of what he learned he put to immediate use.  A young professional who went with him on one of these series of brief visits came back in awe. “By the time John got to the third of his drop-in meetings, he was passing on information he hadn’t known half an hour earlier!” 

Listen carefully and share - Wilcox realized that communications are imperfect in all companies. He had learned to listen carefully in all his meetings for bits of information that he could legitimately pass on to others, the winning of a new account, the departure of an employee and other little things.  He would use them to provide something of value to the rest of the people he met that day.  Once he got the hang of it, it was easy.

Introduce yourself - A litigation support consultant went to a bar association meeting.  During the reception, he noticed a man standing alone, so he crossed the room and introduced himself.  Six weeks later this man, a litigator, introduced the consultant to a client who hired him to help on a case. “I really didn’t do anything.  I just went over and talked to him.”  But, crossing over the room and talking to the man was doing something, something that no one else had done. The win wouldn’t have been any more important, if he had had to do something hard to get it.

Keep an eye out for news you can forward - One of the most successful rainmakers in Europe clips articles from the newspaper that mentioned a company or industry and uses them as the reason to call or send a note to his clients.  A young professional, whom he was encouraging to do the same, said, “What’s the point?  This is so easy.  Anybody can do it.”  The rainmaker responded, “Yes, but no one does.”

Young professionals are always concerned about the time needed to plan and execute large business development efforts.  Rainmakers do many small, easy things, sometimes in preference to the larger effort.  They know that though many others could easily do the same, few, in fact, do.  They know that there are no extra points for doing something hard.

(What are some easy things you do to help manage your relationships?)

I was interviewed for MarketingSherpa’s new article 20 Simple Tactics to Gather & Pitch Leads.

If you want to read it, hurry, because it’s open only until July 3. After that you have to become a MarketingSherpa member (they do offer a free trial though).

The summary of the article is as follows:

Attracting new clients — rainmaking — is critical for most marketing firms and consultants. It all starts with rounding up enough high-quality leads.

We talked to a consultant for consultants about rainmaking: how to find more leads, build relationships and make your pitch. Includes 20 tips to help you improve your rainmaking ability.