RJon Robins

Hardly a day goes by that I don’t find great leads for a half-dozen different practice areas in my local newspaper.  In fact, before I cut-back on my private consulting work to focus on expanding the membership portion of the  How To Make It Rain.com website so we can open it to new members soon, I used to earn quite a bit of money feeding leads I’d find in the papers to my Rainmaking clients.

If you’re not getting new business for your law firm from yoru local paper, what’s stopping you?  Post your comment & we’ll see if we can help you out.

REWARD RAINMAKING ACTIVITIES, NOT BUSY WORK

I’ve only met a few lawyers whose law schools offered even a single course on Rainmaking or the business of managing a law firm. So I don’t blame either the would-be rainmakers, or firm management who cannot distinguish between nonsensical busy-work that looks like Rainmaking, and the truly effective and productive activities that put hundreds of thousands of extra dollars in Rainmakers’ pockets each year.

Much of the distinction has to do with how a given activity fits into the overall system. But without a plan (and the right set of skills) most of what passes for rainmaking ends up just being a waste of time & a poor excuse to get out of the office

Four of the biggest & most frequent time wasters are:

• Writing articles.  Unless you can say exactly what you’re going to do with the article once it’s been written & published, it’s probably going to be a waste of your time.  Go play with your kids instead!;

• Networking events – especially bar functions.  Most would-be rainmakers use these events as an excuse to get out of the office to socialize.  And they compound the problem by wasting time talking to people they already know.  My Rainmaking clients & I attend networking events to work.  That’s not to say networking and meeting prospective new clients and referral sources can’t be fun.  When you learn how to network effectively, it can be profitable and fun.  But not nearly as much fun as being out on the boat with my friends so I attend networking events to work; and

• Schmoozing with ad reps looking to pick your pockets.  This is not only a waste of time, but also a big waste of money if you don’t know what kinds of ads to run and if you don’t know ahead of time how the ad is going to fit into your overall marketing plans – some ads are educational, some are for positioning, while still others are strictly a call to action.  Don’t waste your time or money until you understand the difference and how to use each one in your marketing plans; and finally…

• The BIGGEST waste of time is taking prospective clients and referral sources out to lunch.  If you want to know why, post a comment with your question or better-yet download the FREE e-book entitled “Ten Rainmaking Mistakes Made By Solo Practitioners.”  Even if you’re not a solo, I suspect you’ll still find it a valuable use of the 15 minutes it will take to read the whole thing. 

Recently there’s been a lot of blog traffic on the subject of how to motivate oneself and our associates to go out and make it rain for our law firms. It seems the blogosphere has figured-out what the most successful Rainmakers already know: Rainmaking is not a passive activity. There is a BIG difference between waiting around for it to rain, and implementing a system, a set of skills and a plan to Make It Rain.

Doing good work and waiting for appreciative clients to refer more business to you is a nerve-wracking way to go through life – been there/ done that so don’t feel bad if you’re still learning how to avoid it too.

One of the most effective ways to institutionalize Rainmaking activities in a law firm (large or small) is to pose the question “So, how can I/we do better next time?” after EVERY sales call. Of course, this assumes there is no such thing as a perfect sales call. . .because there isn’t! If answered objectively and with sincerity, this question always leads to improvement.

Get into the habit with your partners, associates, or just you and some friends from other firms with whom you can engage in some two-way peer coaching, of talking critically but constructively about your respective Rainmaking experiences, with the goal of self-improvement – not competition.

And if you can’t find anyone with whom you are comfortable, feel free to send-in an e-mail briefly detailing your experiences & I’ll post it as a new discussion so you get the benefit of multiple interpretations, opinions, ideas & suggestions from attorneys in other markets who are not competing with you.