The managing partner of a firm once told me about a dinner that he and his boss had with a client in Chicago long ago. The boss, whose name is Bob, was the founder of the firm and a prodigious rainmaker. Much of his prowess was based on a detailed knowledge of certain aspects of the insurance industry. That knowledge allowed the firm to compete with larger firms with stronger reputations and deeper pockets.

Like Bob, the client had spent all his career in insurance, so all through the dinner they regaled each other with stories about people they knew in the business. The client, like Bob, could trace people then prominent in the industry back three or four jobs and describe how they had made their careers. They matched each other, story for story, from the appetizer through dessert.

After leaving the client, as Bob and future managing partner were walking back to their hotel, Bob said, “Didn’t we learn a lot!” His young colleague was baffled by his enthusiasm.

Three weeks later the two men were attending an association meeting where they were introduced to someone who had been the subject of one of the client’s stories during the dinner. “Oh, your so-and-so! I’ve heard so much about you,” said Bob. “Didn’t you . . .” and he proceeded to tell the man he had just met about one of the man’s early successes. “I’d love to get together with you some time,” Bob concluded. “Sure,” said the man, without hesitation. “Give my secretary a call and we’ll set something up.” He handed Bob his card.

If someone whom you had never met told you something about your past in detail, wouldn’t you be curious? Wouldn’t you be inclined to give the person a meeting?

In other posts, I have written about the benefits of specialization. One such benefit is the affinity it creates in your network. As in this example, the knowledge you get from one network member has interest to others that isn’t the case in low affinity networks. You do better work and you get better work because of this knowledge.

What would you do with ten found minutes during your work day?  If your answer isn’t an activity that will help you get business, try again.  What business development activity would you do with ten found minutes?

In practice you probably answer this question several times a week.  You finish a task ten minutes before you are scheduled to call a client.  A colleague is late for a meeting.  You arrive early at a client site.  A meeting finishes early.  What do you do at moments like these?

A rainmaker almost certainly calls a member of her network or sends one a quick email.  She can do this, because she knows who she wants to reach out to and she recognizes the found time as an opportunity to do so.  She has built the calling habit over the years.

Most people don’t have this habit, so the found minutes get spent on responding to an internal email or something else that won’t help them develop business.

If you want to develop the habit, try the following:  Take twenty minutes once a week, preferably on Friday afternoon, Sunday or early Monday, and review your contact list.   Make a new list of people you will try to reach that week.  Just twenty minutes.  Then when you find ten unexpected minutes in your calendar, reach for the list.

(This post is another in our series of Rainmaking Problems.  We invote your comments on this problem and would also welcome any problems you would like to submit to get comments from other readers.)

In my last post, I noted that curing bad habits is easier if you know what to do, rather than just what not to do. Instead of saying I, say we. Increase your eye contact and you will say uhm less often.

Over the years, the people in our firm have developed lots of prescriptions to deal with common bad sales habits. But I haven’t found satisfactory solutions to others. For example, what would you advise people to do to:

1> Stop talking so fast? I have never found a satisfactory cure to this common malady.
2> Stop selling after a client has agreed to a point? We all know do this, but failure rates remain high. What advice will reduce them?

Are there bad sales habits that you would like other readers’ advice on curing?

Senior professionals often tell their juniors to stop doing things that detract from meetings with prospective clients.

Don’t say I.
Don’t stand with your hands clasped in front of you (sometimes called the fig-leaf position).
Don’t interrupt the client.
Don’t talk so much.
Don’t say uhm so much.
Don’t sound so academic.
Try not to sound so presumptuous.
Don’t talk so fast.

The pressure on younger professionals goes up as such instructions get repeated overtime with, at the least, the implication that lack of improvement could limit their careers.

These instructions are often hard to follow. It is relatively easy to stop saying I by replacing it with we, but many of the other examples are hard to comply with. A person who sounds academic doesn’t do so intentionally. From long personal experience, I know how hard it is to stop talking fast.

They are hard to comply with, because they don’t tell you what you are supposed to do. And your ability to modify your behavior depends more on what you do than what you don’t do. So, when given instructions like these, try to translate them into something you can do, instead.

That’s why it’s easy to stop saying I so much; the we-alternative is obvious. The alternatives to some of the others are relatively easy to identify. So, for example, instead of holding your hands in the fig-leaf position, you can fill one of them with a prop (a pad of paper, your glasses, or even a pen) or place one on the back of a chair. Though harder, you can practice letting your hands hang naturally at your side, between gestures.

The person who sounds academic can try reformulating what she has to say, as if she were explaining it to a twelve-year-old. The person who sounds presumptuous can broaden client-specific advice (you should, you need to) with observations from firm experience (we have seen that many companies faced with your situation have found it helpful to . . .). For some alternatives to talking too much, see the post, He Talks Too Much.

Sometimes, the do instead of the don’t isn’t easily deduced. Sally Goodman taught me that for most people increasing eye contact reduces uhms. Otherwise, I never would have known.

But if you can translate don’t do that into do this, your chances of changing your behavior go up.

Charles Brown has a post listing other posts which explain how to use social media.  I recommend it to those wanting an introduction to the subject.

Everyone knew there was no point in calling on Hannah.  She had had a bad experience with the firm and had ceased to use it long ago.  The damage that had been done proved ever more limiting as Hannah’s career prospered and she was put in charge of larger portions of the client organization.

Ignoring the common wisdom of the firm, Grant, a senior associate, scheduled a meeting with her.  Grant is a soft spoken man with an open, reassuring manner.  He is an introvert and a listener.

He began the meeting by saying, “I understand you had a bad experience with our firm.  The person you worked with is no longer with the firm and that was before my time.  But, if you want to talk about it, I’m here to listen.  Or, if you would prefer, we can talk about the future.”

There was silence for half a minute and Grant held his tongue.  Then, Hannah said, “I haven’t spoken with anyone from your firm for ten years.”  Again a pause, and she said, “I have some needs coming up that I’m going to want some help with.  Let’s talk about them.”

Go see that client who had a bad experience with your firm.  A forthright approach, like Grant’s, at the very least will help ensure the client doesn’t bad mouth the firm, if she has in the past.  At best, the client and you will talk about the future.

I am coaching a woman named Lisa, who doesn’t add names to her contact list regularly and hasn’t for years.  She hasn’t pulled all the names of her contacts together into her Outlook program from old client files, old employer directories, the shoebox of business cards she keeps and elsewhere.

This means she doesn’t have phone numbers and email addresses of her contacts handy.  Because she doesn’t have them handy, she misses opportunities to contact the people she knows.  She isn’t developing a rainmaker’s call discipline.

Lacking call discipline, she isn’t rekindling old or developing new relationships.  That results in insufficient lead flow, and, of course, without enough leads, she doesn’t win as much business as she wants to.

If this goes on, she won’t get promoted to partner and will eventually be asked to leave the firm.  And all for the want of a contact list!

A good contact list is the fundamental tool for getting business.  Without one, you will never be a rainmaker.

(This post is another in our series of Rainmaking Problems. We invite your comments on this problem and would also welcome any problems you would like to submit to get comments from other readers.)

I recently received this problem from a reader in New York, whom I will call Steve . I have blinded it to protect the anonymity of those involved. Steve wrote:

I came across your blog this evening as I sought answers/understanding for a prospective job that went south. Perhaps you can use this for your Rainmaking Problems; it’s at least cathartic to type this confessional and I thank you for your indulgence.

I first met the prospective client, a [charity organization], in the summer of 2008, introduced by an acquaintance who was a member of the board and said they were looking for [the kinds of services we offer]. I had two good meetings with them, developed a thorough and very reasonable proposal, and was led to believe that we would be authorized to start work soon.

After a few weeks of being told approval was pending, my acquaintance informed me that the board was also talking to other [firms in our field] - and that they’d used my proposal as the basis for these conversations (after stripping any identifying or cost language). I felt this was somewhat unethical but I was interested in the project and didn’t make a protest.

After many more weeks, the board apparently narrowed the selection to us and one other firm. My acquaintance sent me a copy of the other firm’s proposal - the language of the scope was nearly identical to ours, but there were many more restrictions and [their cost] was higher. The other firm, however, had strong allies on the Board (so says my acquaintance) and they were awarded the project. I was a gracious loser, sending notes thanking everyone who’d I met, and genuinely disappointed not to be doing the work.

Then, a few days later, my acquaintance calls to say they want to see us again. We put together a new presentation to support our proposal and I’m told we were far superior to the other guy.

I reach out to my acquaintance to learn the verdict, and he tells me they want us to return again, this time [after doing some upfront work at our expense to get a sense of our approach] - no decision yet.

At this point, five months since the initial meeting and one apparently rigged loss already, I’m a little frustrated; given what had happened with my proposal am distrustful of their motives in seeking new original content; and feel [preliminary free work] would be grossly premature & would foul the planning process should we actually get the work. However, I accept the invitation.

I elect to not provide [the free work] and instead focus on planning issues, as if it were the beginning of the work as layed out in my proposal. The other guy comes in with a dog & pony show and gets the job.

So after mulling this over, I feel the critical moment was when I accepted the invitation to return the last time; that everyone would have been better served by me challenging the need to return and by me saying flat-out that thought we’d already made our case and wouldn’t be doing any [free work] (sounds arrogant as I type it!). Or perhaps we should have thrown together a dog & pony show too, but I still believe this would have come back to haunt us had we landed the job, and really would have stung if we’d lost.

Was it right to feel squeamish about the way they appropriated our proposal? Was it right to feel frustrated? Was this job better not to get, or was it even possible to get?

My gut tells me we were being used to make the rigged choice shape up, and that we should be grateful not to have gotten the job, but still, I know there’s an improved me that would have found a way to handle this better - and would be interested in a true Rainmaker’s perspective.

I have sent Steve a preliminary response, but think he would welcome the chance to hear other people’s assessment of the situation, before they are biased by mine. What are your responses to the author’s questions?

Reading Liz Strauss’s Successful & Outstanding Bloggers, a great resource for bloggers, I was directed to Sonia Simone’s post on SlowBlogging which, as is the way with blogs, led me to Mara Rogers’s post on SpeedBlogging. Both of these pieces address, in part, the challenge of coming up with ideas for posts week after week. This is an issue for all steady bloggers, so I have put together my thoughts on the subject, which I will publish in three posts over the next few months.

For starters, here are ten ways to maintain a steady flow of ideas for posts

1. Keep a List

Both Simone and Rogers make this point and I only repeat it because it is essential. Ideas for posts don’t necessarily come to you when you have time to write; they come in reaction to some stimulus during your day. If you don’t write them down when they come to you, you will forget half of them. When you do sit down to write, you can pick a subject from your list that fits your need and mood. My list now runs to five pages with two thirds of the ideas used up and crossed off. About half the remaining entries don’t look like such good ideas any more, so I’m due for a list extension session.

2. Listen to Your Clients

Business bloggers write to reach their clients and so seek to write things of interest to that audience. Logically, this means your clients are the best source of information on what to write about. They are. The majority of ideas for my posts come from clients. I try to get at least one idea from each client meeting. Clients’ questions, doubts, observations, opinions, stories, boasts and complaints all provide potential grist for a post. But you have to be listening.

3. Listen to Your Readers

You also write for your readers, clients or not. Look at comments as sources of ideas. This is just one reason for establishing a dialogue with your readers. An increasing number of the Rainmaking Problem posts come from this source. They come buried in the comments to the Rainmaking Problem posts, and now there is also a noticeable flow of questions coming by email, the author’s offering the use of their question as a subject for a post. I believe that if I didn’t listen to my readers and encourage them, both the comments and the questions would dry up.

4. Reflect

Spend twenty minutes with your list in front of you thinking of ideas. For some reason ideas seem to come to me in spurts. I will have five or six ideas in quick succession and then none for several days. I doubt I am unique in this. When ideas start to flow, take ten minutes and see how many you can come up with.

5. Organize Your Thinking

Anything you do to organize your thoughts tends to throw off ideas for posts. It can be an outline, typology, mind map, ranking or some other organizing vehicle. The organization, itself, may be bloggable and so may be individual elements. So whenever you engage in thought organizing, recognize that post ideas will be a byproduct. I am currently preparing a new training program which has generated several good ideas.

6. Look for Gaps

Any point in your conversations or writing that you tend to brush over for lack of a clear understanding is worth at least considering as a subject for a post. Writing about it will force you to clarify your own thinking, a major benefit of blogging. Listen for conversational ellipses, such as … and that eventually lead to (exactly how?) … or … as an outgrowth of (again, how?) … or … surprisingly (then, why does it happen?)…. This amounts to listening for the dog that doesn’t bark and takes some practice, but can be remarkably productive, once you get the knack of it.

7. Jot Notes as You Write

Writing, itself, tends to stimulate your thinking. As you write posts, emails and reports, jot down the ideas that come to you. Edit out a paragraph, because it doesn’t quite fit? Ask yourself if it might work as a post. Have one more example of an idea than you need? Maybe it’s the start of a post. Ask yourself if an email might have a second life as a post, if you rewrite it for a broader audience.

8. Drill Down or Step Back

Going into detail on a point you make briefly in a broader argument can generate a post. Who’s in Your Audience? drills down on how to learn who is in your audience when you present at a conference. Alternatively, you can take a small idea and place it in a larger context. The post, What Does It Mean to Prepare for a Sales Meeting, shows that what many professionals do to prepare doesn’t make sense, if you step back and put it in the context of how clients decide whom to hire.

9. Note the Little Points

Most professionals have little points that they make to their clients repeatedly. Little points are perfect for posts, because they lend themselves to brevity. For years I have advised clients that there are no extra points for doing business development the hard way. That simple but overlooked truth became the title for a popular post.

10. Build on a Theme

An idea for one post may contain a theme for several. No extra points became a theme for two more posts (No Extra Points for Originality a and No Extra Points for Doing Business Development an Unpleasant Way). Another theme that has sprung from a single post is A Lesson From (Maurie, Dick, Edwin, Charlie and Joe), a series which captures lessons I have learned from others over the years. Readers like themes, which provide continuity among posts as a balance to variety.

Future posts on the Keep Them Coming: Ideas for Blog Posts theme will appear roughly one and two months from today and will address:

• How to develop posts from those you read on other people’s blogs and
• Using formulas to generate posts