Summer is here and I will be on vacation for part of July and, I hope, slowing things down a bit the rest of the time. So, I will not be posting as often in July and into August as I usually do. My usual two or more postings a week will drop to no less than one a week.
Ford Hading
In a market made up of many thousands of people there would be chaos if every person in the market tried to meet and work with all of the others. In a market made up of 5,000 people, this would require 12.5 million separate parings. Imagine each member of the market trying to schedule and meet with 4,999 others.*
Chaos theory also describes the other extreme in which there is rigidity with no one making any new contacts. In the grey area between these two extremes lies complexity, where some people manage to meet some others and make things happen. That’s the world we live in.
When mathematicians model complex systems on a computer, they often find attractors, nodes, like magnets, which attract others. In network markets these attractors are rainmakers.
If you once establish a strong lead flow, you will find yourself much sought after by others who want to feed off of your contacts. You attract them because you know so many of the right people and are always meeting new ones. You attract them because the right people seek your advice, which allows you to spin off leads for your own firm and for others.
Several identifiable types are attracted to you, including:
Other Attractors: Attractors seek each other out for obvious reasons. When two or more come together, they create a lead generating machine. They also create an in-group or clique. These cliques create a powerful attraction. Many are drawn, but few are let in.
Client Minders: These people know their business and deliver excellent service. Their clients love them, and they are often good reactive sellers. But with the exception of turning up some add-on work at their current account, they don’t know how to generate leads. Within a firm the paring of a rainmaker/attractor with a minder can be a powerful combination around which many a practice has been built. Outside the firm, grinders tend to work intensively at a client for a few years. When work at a client dries up, they spend six months in hell hoping to get some more work and not knowing what to do about it. They are attracted to rainmakers, because the rainmakers have one thing they haven’t, lead flow.
Most rainmakers I know like to help out client minders, because they know that any client the minders are referred to will be treated well, and because most minders are decent, hard-working, likeable people. Still, when a minder comes back for more leads time and again, the rainmaker is likely to wonder why the minder hasn’t taken steps to avoid the dearth of work, yet again. And rainmakers need help, too. Must the flow always be one way, they wonder.
For every rainmaker there seem to be three or four minders, all looking for leads. At any given time, one or more are hoping that the rainmaker will toss something their way. This gets old for the rainmaker, as much as she values their friendship and likes them as people.
Proto-rainmakers/attractors: These are people who demonstrate a fundamental understanding of networking, but are still learning. They are seldom a member of a clique yet nor are their networks big. But they will try to help the rainmaker, not just looking for handouts. Most rainmakers will try to help proto-rainmakers, because they like to help people come along. There is also a chance with this type that the rainmaker’s help will be returned.
There are a variety of other people who want access your lead flow. There are those who have started a business but don’t have a clue about how to get find a client and so, probably won’t be in business for long. Others see great synergy between your practice and theirs, synergy meaning that you feed them leads and they buy you a lunch in return. Rainmakers will try to help these people, too, but not put much energy into it.
* Many markets have more than 5,000 members and the number of possible parings goes up geometrically as you add people. So, a network of 10,000 has just shy of 50 million possible paring, almost four times larger than the 5,000 person market does.
For more advice like this, please see Ford Hardings’ new book: Rain Making, Attract New Clients No Matter What Your Field, 2nd Edition
“Rain Making, in its new edition demonstrates its position as the single most sensible, accessible guide to building a professional practice…”
David Maister, author of Strategy and the Fat Smoker and co-author of The Trusted Advisor (with Charles Green and Robert Galford)
This carnival has selected a posting from this blog, Who’s in Your Audience, originally published here on May 12, 2008, for inclusion in its Professionally Speaking category. Because our blog is not primarilly focused on public speaking, we are flattered to be included. For additional good postings on speaking skills, visit the carnival.
Sims Wyeth and I are having a debate on the use of FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) and GOG (greed, opportunity and glory) in selling. He argued for FUD and I suggested that for some clients, those who are achievement oriented, GOG works better. He came back with the one, two punch of FUD first followed by GOG. In plain English, scare the pants off of them first and then wow them with the opportunity. This is my rejoinder.
Sims, our arguement started with your FUD hypothesis, followed by my GOG antithesis, allowing your FUD’em then GOG’em synthesis. Your Aristotelian heart must be glowing. If this were an Aristotelian world, that would be the end of it, but it’s not. Making a client keenly aware of the risk she faces and then showing how she can both avoid the risk and achieve something good at the same time makes a powerful arguement when this logic reflects the client’s situation. Often it doesn’t. If you see smoke coming out of someone’s roof and rush to their door to warn them, you shout to alert those inside of the danger and don’t waste time describing how beautiful the renovated building will be a year from now. It’s a FUD only situation. If you discover a great deal for some object you think a friend might like to buy, you seek to pursuade him what a great opportunity it is–a GOG situation.
There is an ethical issue here, too. Fear tactics are despicable when used with unsophisticated clients who don’t know enough to discount the inflated description of what might happen. The same is true about inflated descriptions of future benefits. The goal of selling is to help the client assess real risks and real opportunities in the situation she faces.
Imagine a Venn diagram of two overlapping circles. The left one represents situations where downside risk is high, where FUD is appropriate. The right circle represents situations where upside risk is great, perfect for GOG. Only where the circles overlap is it approriate to use both FUD and GOG.
In his current posting, Sims Wyeth argues the validity of using FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) as a means of pursuading and selling. This is a hotly debated subject.
Not long ago, Charlie Green wrote a post arguing against the use of FUD in most cases. I took issue with Charlie’s aversion to so useful a tool. Certainly, there are big, bad thinks out in the world and if a client is unaware of them, it’s appropriate to bring them to his attention. In other words, to use FUD.
Today, for variety, I will take issue with Sims. There are many cases in which FUD is inappropriate, and some clients are annoyed when the professionals they deal with resort to fear tactics, reminding them of threats that they are well aware of. These are people who are more interested in greed, opportunity and glory (or GOG, if you will). GOG sells, too. It sells much better than FUD to people who are achievement oriented, and that’s a category that includes some important people. Most CEOs, for example, are achievement oriented. With such people it is often more effective to focus them on the good things that would result if they take the right action, instead of on impending disaster. Instead of painting a picture of a scorched earth, paint one in which they are rich and famous, in which they create business history.
Achievement oriented people are easy to pick out. They’re the ones who see opportunity at every turn, instead of problems. They’re the ones who talk continually about growth, profits and all the neat things they plan to do. In addition to CEOs, many Chief Marketing Officers, and heads of research think this way. Ask these people questions like:
So, over the next few weeks, try selling GOG a couple of times. It can be a lot more fun than dealing in FUD.
New Jersey Lawyer has published a review of the new edition of Rain Making. The author of the review is Esther Gueft, an attorney and business development consultant primarily working with East Coast law firms.
The Council of Public Relations Firms recorded a podcast with Suzanne Lowe and me called Adapting to a Downturn. It is now available here. Free registration is required.
In an old post, Build It and They Will Come, I described a common business development fallacy at professional firms. Professionals sometimes think that one heroic effort; a major presentation to a client or a speech at an association or a publication of a thoughtful article; will bring in business. It seldom happens so simply.
In a recent post Seth Godin reports similar fallacious thinking among those who sell products, who believe that one big effort, like a product launch or grand openning will have significant impact on the market. Instead, companies must do the hard work of marketing and selling, going back to the market again and again, says Godin.
Because professional service firms often lag product companies in marketing and sales sophistication, it’s good to learn that the product companies make this kind of mistake, too.
In a recent post, Peter Darling commented on a piece in ABA Journal on the desirablility of origination credits in which Martha Nell reported on a article that appreared in New York Law Journal. That article argued that origination credits should expire after a number of years. That way attorneys working the account could get credits to incentivise them to keep and expand it. Peter Darling argued that the attorney who originated the relationship should get the origination in perpetuity.
I respectfully disagree–and agree–with both positions. Compensation systems are tools to help a firm achieve its objectives. They cannot be decided on once and forever; they need to change over time. What’s right for a number of years won’t be right for all time. This is for two reasons:
1) A firm’s objectives change with time and circumstances. At one time it may need to stress cooperation in the sales effort, and so require shared originations. At others, it may want to focus on individual responsibility, so leaning towards sole origination credits. As the firm’s needs change, so must its compensation system, or sooner or later the firm will have its strategy and its compensation system in conflict with each other.
2) Any compensation system creates undesirable incentives as welll as desired ones. Reward people for bringing in a large account with long-term origination creddits and you create an incentive for some lawyers to grasp at credit for any and all contact they have had with a company before it became a client. After a number of years, any compensation system begins to suffer from having too many people trying to game it. It then needs refreshing or replacement.
Compensation systems are a way to reward performance. As the firm’s focus on different kinds of performance change, so must its rewards system. The challenge comes with successfully making the change. Every change in compensation system is likely to be met with an outcry of how it will destroy the firm and bring financial ruin to its attorneys. Push the change through, anyway, and two years later you will get a similar outcry from the same people when you try to replace the new system. Isn’t managing a professional service firm fun!
A rainmaker, as we define one, brings in leads and converts them into business at such levels that she leaves her colleagues in awe. Of the two talents, lead generation and lead conversion, the former is much the rarer. That is, professionals who can sell, once given a lead outnumber those who can generate leads, but can’t convert them into business.
Yet, lead generation gets little attention relative to its importance. Brian Carroll devotes a successful blog to it, B2B Lead Generation Blog, and has written a good book on the subject, Lead Generation for the Complex Sale. A handful of books, like my own, deal with both lead generation and face-to-face selling. In comparison, there are dozens of good (and not so good) books on how to conduct a sales meeting.
In part, that’s because of the diverse nature of leads in the professions, and, as a result, in the way they are obtained. A lead, by our definition, is an opportunity to meet face-to-face with a prospective client to talk about a problem that she has that you might be able to solve for a fee. Leads all end up with a professional sitting across a table with a client, but there are many paths to the room. Which path the professional takes depends on the nature of the clients and the needs he works with and on his personal preference.
For example, there are needs that are secret, like the impending default on a loan, and those that are public, like the need for an auditor. In the former case, just finding out that a company has a need gives you an advantage, but not in the latter case. Some needs are ongoing, like need to monitor emissions and discharges; some are frequent, like a fast food chain’s need to negotiate leases; and some are infrequent like the need for a company to pick a location for a new headquarters.
Some may have a devastating effect, if the need isn’t met effectively, such as the recruitment of a new CEO, while others can result in an ongoing annoyance if resolved poorly, like the retention of a graphic artist to place, word and design signage for a college campus.
Some, like the outsourcing of a company’s data center operations, evolve and develop over a long time. With others the formal hiring takes place when the client calls up and, in effect, places an order. M&A attorneys often hire valuation consultants this way. The informal sale was made at some previous and usually unspecified time, when the attorney decided to give the valuation firm a try the next time he had a need.
The challenge for the aspiring rainmaker is to identify a process or processes for generating leads and then to work at that process intensely. In the early years, the challenge is often meeting enough people with the right kinds of needs. Here are a couple of quotes of young lawyers who did this and succeeded:
“I spent a significant amount of time giving speeches to groups of people I hoped would remember me. I spoke at chambers of commerce, hospital associations and many other groups. Once one is on the circuit and has topics of interest, you get requests to speak. I would ask clients if they were members of an association that would like to have me speak. There were years when I was doing 25 speeches a year and it was very, very fruitful. It is where I got my early business, and the people I met giving speeches form the corps of my network today.” (The late Carol Berlin Manzoni, who in addition to being a fine attorney was a lovely person.)
“When I was 32, I started going to every business meeting I could. I went to Chamber of Commerce Meetings, Institute of Packaging Professionals meetings, Business & Industry Association meetings—you name it and I was there. I wanted to meet everybody. I did in every meeting and largely at my own expense. I realized soon that I wouldn’t meet end users at these events, but I could hook people up with each other and build up chits. I made a point of coming back from every meeting with several business cards. Those that seemed at all promising I had a breakfast or lunch with. After about a year, I started getting some good cases.” (Attorney Eugene Killian)
Once the machines they had built began to punch out leads, neither of these people had to continue at such a feverish pitch. Over the years the processes evolve as a rainmaker’s needs change.
The challenge is to identify a process that will work for you. Here are some simple guidelines for doing so:
1. Try what’s worked before. There are no extra points for originality in this game. If it worked for your boss or the big rainmaker in the firm, see if you can make it work for you. Ask the person who is already effective how she got started, what false starts she had, what she has changed over time and how long it took before she began to see solid results. Use what you learn to adapt the technique to your circumstances.
If these people don’t make rain in a way that suits your style, explore what worked before for others in your profession. What worked before includes what worked for competitors. It’s amazing what you can learn about a competitor’s techniques, if you focus on finding out. You can watch them in action at conferences, debrief their former employees and colleagues, and read what they have published. Ask them and chances are they will tell you more than you expect. Ask a client who knows you well how other professionals approach him to get his business.
My book, Rain Making-2nd Edition-Attract New Clients No Matter What Your Field, describes many methods for generating leads that have worked for other professionals.
2. Experiment and adapt. Some trial and error learning is inevitable as you try to master lead generation. You are entitled to have some false starts and make mistakes along the way. If you think of a way to get close to prospective clients to generate leads that you haven’t seen succeed, try it. Whatever technique you choose, you will need to adapt it to your time and place and personality.
3. Don’t let up. A few mistakes may set you back, but giving up is certain failure. Try to do at least one thing every day, even if it is something small, that will help you get into a conversation with a prospective client.
For more advice like this, please see Ford Hardings’ new book: Rain Making, Attract New Clients No Matter What Your Field, 2nd Edition
“Rain Making, in its new edition demonstrates its position as the single most sensible, accessible guide to building a professional practice…”
David Maister, author of Strategy and the Fat Smoker and co-author of The Trusted Advisor (with Charles Green and Robert Galford)
Ford Harding is the founder and President of Harding & Company, helping management consultants, public relations specialists, accountants, architects, attorneys, executive recruiters and engineers win new clients. The author of a number of books, he often writes for publications such as the Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal, and Consulting to Management. More on Ford Harding.
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