Stick with it or quit?

Olympic athletes train for years just to have their chance at such glory. They overcome self-doubt, long odds, and extraordinary challenges. As author Seth Godin points out in The Dip, every opportunity starts out exciting and fun. Then its gets harder and less fun until eventually it becomes really hard and not much fun at all. The trick is to understand whether you are in a “dip” where perseverance will lead to success or when you need to quit, change course, and create new success. All of us in the legal profession have lived this scenario. I always thought law school was an excellent choice for an English/History double major until my first exam results showed I knew nothing about issue spotting. Going to court can be a young lawyer’s dream, but when the judge excludes your evidence or the jury isn’t following your reasoning, the nightmare of reality makes you want to run out the door. To become lawyers, we stick with it and overcome these challenges.

Can you make lemonade?

Many lawyers are currently facing a different kind of career challenge. A recent Wall Street Journal article highlighted the difficult employment prospects for lawyers and even questioned the value of a law degree. Many good lawyers who’ve done everything right are unemployed. Many smart, ambitious law students have no job prospects. My personal antidote to professional challenges like these has always been to develop a strong network of reliable connections. Avoid the temptation to isolate yourself. In challenging times, personal connections offer the most direct route to discovering opportunities. Now more than ever we need to stay connected with clients, potential clients, referral sources, and other contacts. Work your personal network of friends, law school classmates, and colleagues. My rule of thumb is to always have a full two weeks on my calendar. If I am not with clients or prospective clients then I am meeting with active contacts, referral sources, and friends.

Keep your glass half full

“People prefer the security of known misery, to the misery of unknown insecurity,” says former lawyer turned psychologist Stan McCleary. Personal economics frequently trap lawyers in to making unhappy career choices. How much is it worth for you to be happy? When your life comes to its end, will it be worthwhile to have earned an impressive income doing personally meaningless work? Take stock of your personal misery index. If the practice of law Isn’t creating success for you, develop a vision of career alternatives. Having a law degree unlocks numerous options for you in business, government, education, and politics.

As Seth Godin points out, strategic quitting is not failure, it’s a conscious decision to pursue success on another track. Successful people know whether the light at the end of their current career tunnel is opportunity or a train coming at them. Trust that all of your efforts will ultimately yield to a positive outcome, the only variable being precisely how long it will take. Present yourself to the market, to friends, and to your network by communicating a message of confidence and optimism. Your glass is always half full.

The leap of faith

In an old Buddhist fable, a man falls from a cliff but is saved by grabbing the branch of a tree. Hanging there he sees a small plateau that could save him if only he could reach it. The only way to reach it is to let go of the branch and jump. Like many of you, he is paralyzed by the choice. What is required is a leap of faith. If you are on the right track to happiness, personal perseverance will create success for you. If you need to change tracks, have faith in yourself, in your education, and in your network. Make time for expanding your learning, marketing, and personal brand building. Find a mentor, start blogging or writing for a publication, and work your network.

Remember, maintaining the status quo never changed anyone’s status.

Necessary for networking

Networking with business cards remains one of the most effective methods of marketing yourself. Your ability to successfully network is a necessary foundation to any lawyer’s marketing efforts. Always have some business cards with you because you never know when an opportunity might present itself for a new contact. When you do meet people at network events, business meetings, or other gatherings, after your initial introductions, always ask them for their business cards. It will then be natural for them to ask you for yours. But if they don’t ask, don’t offer. When you do get their cards, thank them, and read them closely. Make sure all their contact information is there. If something is missing, ask them for the information so you can add it to your contact data base later.

The vCard

A vCard is a type of email signature, sometimes called the digital equivalent of a business card. To create your own vCard, first, create a contact file in Outlook. Then under Tools, click on Options and create an email signature and choose the business card option. Your own vCard will now display at the bottom of your email. Frequently, lawyers also include a vCard link in their Web site bio. vCards provide certain advantages over standard email signatures. First, the email recipient can save your contact information into their contact database with one click. Second, once in their database, future emails from you to them should get right past any spam filters. Plus, they’ll have your contact information for future communications.

Beam me, Scotty

While exchanging business cards remains standard protocol, many people are choosing Web-based services or “digital business cards.” The free Web site DubMeNow lets you create a digital business card. You can share your card via e-text or e-mail, and your contact information is automatically saved into the person’s address book and updated whenever you make a change. When you meet someone at a networking event, some iPhone applications like Bump and BeamMe allow you to exchange digital info with other iPhone users. Then there’s SnapDat, which sends a digital image of your business card and embedded links to your social networking sites to either an email address or to a smart phone through a special SnapDat account. However, even with this new technology, the fundamental rules of business card etiquette remain true: Pass your business cards (or beam your digital cards) only to those who ask you for one. And, they are more likely to ask you for your card if you ask for theirs first.

Law students need business cards

Networking has become a critical part of any lawyer’s job search. Trying to effectively network without business cards is like eating soup with a fork: a whole lot of effort for very little reward. Business cards are the most convenient tool to convey your basic contact information. If you’re a law student, check to see if business cards are available through your law school. This allows you to capitalize on their sophisticated branding. Make sure to include your full name, a physical address where you can receive direct mail, a phone number, and an email address. When marketing yourself to the legal profession, you need a professional-looking email address, not beerbonger69@website.com. Create a new email address that has some form of your full name before the @ symbol. If the cost of creating cards is an issue, there are a variety of websites that will let you create cards for free.

Paper: Not obsolete yet

The paper choice, logo, design, and readability of a business card can give you clues to an individual’s or an organization’s cultural values. The physical reality of the paper business card makes it easier to store your contact information indefinitely. People change software programs all the time, upgrade their smart phones, and often accidentally lose their contact data. Your physical business card can sit on a desk, in a pile of papers or even in a drawer and act as a reminder when rediscovered. When you’re networking, it’s much easier to exchange business cards instead of interrupting your conversation to tap information in your Blackberry. Even if you are so inclined, that doesn’t mean the person you are talking to has the interest to get their phone out and take in your details. Having a physical card can save you from a variety of potential embarrassing scenarios.

Like the rumored death of Mark Twain, the idea that business cards are extinct has been greatly exaggerated.

Effectiveness is the key to success

According to Michael E. Porter, Harvard Business School professor and world-renowned expert on strategy, success requires both the right strategy and “operational effectiveness.” It is important to distinguish effectiveness from strategy. Both are essential, but each is different. Failure to focus on the effectiveness of execution can easily doom the most impressive strategic plan. Dr. Ram Charan, noted author and consultant to many successful organizations, calls effectiveness of execution “the missing link between aspiration and results.” It is fundamental to actually getting things done.

Measuring effectiveness of marketing

Creating effective marketing for legal services often includes trial, error, and analysis. Frequently lawyers may skip the analysis and simply “trust their gut instincts.” If you aren’t measuring your marketing efforts, how do you know if what you are doing is bringing in any business? Why continue paying for a directory listing, a yellow page ad, a web marketing company, or a television commercial if it isn’t bringing in more money than you spend on it? For newspaper, magazine, or television advertising, there are a number of simple ways to track your results. For instance, you can include a unique website address or a phone number in your marketing efforts. In addition, use free analytics services, such as Google Analytics, to analyze website traffic.

Measuring effectiveness of blawgs, tweets, and friends

How can you measure the effectiveness of social media?  There are a number of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to consider. The number of visitors to a social site is just the beginning. You also want to measure the level of engagement.  Variables like amount of time spent on your site, the number of comments, and content submitted also can be indicators of success.

For a Twitter account, you can use tools like Raven, Twitalyzer, and Klout. These tools help you track retweets (the number of times your tweets have been passed on), mentions (the number of times your username was included in a tweet), as well as which tweets received the most attention. TweetEffect is a program that can be used to determine which tweets cause you to gain or lose followers. Facebook now sends fan page administrators a Weekly Facebook Page Update. These notices contain valuable information, including the number of new fans, wall posts, comments, and visits.

Measuring effectiveness of personal marketing

When we measure the effectiveness of personal marketing activities, there are four relevant stages. The first is known as being “unconsciously ineffective,” which translates into doing the same activities over and over but expecting a different result. If your usual marketing methods are not producing client growth, maybe it’s time to rethink your methods. The next stage, being “consciously ineffective,” means we understand our marketing needs corrective action and we are investigating new options. We become “consciously effective” when we leverage this knowledge for positive change. We implement a new marketing plan, focus on execution, and measure our results. As we learn what works and integrate these activities into our usual routines, we become “naturally effective” and client growth follows.

Where should you focus?

Every lawyer and law firm should identify specific markets for potential clients. Your message and delivery method to these potential clients should be measured for results. In some situations “low-tech” activities such as personal contact and follow through may be the most effective. In others, broader approaches like publishing, speaking and social media outlets may be more effective. As an example, “Willie” Sutton robbed more than 100 banks during the Great Depression. He usually carried a Thompson submachine gun, claiming, “You can’t rob a bank on charm and personality.” However he never carried a loaded gun because he was afraid somebody might get hurt. When asked why he robbed banks, he famously answered, “because that’s where the money is.”

For effective legal marketing, make sure you “go where the clients are.”

Face-to-face communication preferred
Why should you bother working on interpersonal skills when most communication is by telephone, text message, and email? “Because face-to-face communication remains the most powerful human interaction,” says Kathleen Begley, Ed.D., author of “Face-to-Face Communication, Making Human Connections in a Technology-Driven World.” “As wonderful as electronic devices are, they can never fully replace the intimacy and immediacy of people conversing in the same room.” This was supported in a 2009 survey by the IABC Research Foundation where both tech-savvy Millennials and older Baby Boomers said they prefer face-to-face communication as the primary way to build relationships in the workplace.

Positive career impact
The standard 8-hour job has been replaced by 24-hour accessibility. Organizations hand out cell phones, laptops and PDAs to employees so they can “telework” without even coming in to the office. Everyone is connected through email, text messaging, smart phones, and podcasts. Is mastery of all these tools really the best way to advance your career? Not according to a 2007 survey of 1,320 executives by recruiting firm Korn/Ferry International, where teleworkers were less likely to advance in their careers than people who went to work each day. Executives want face time. It’s difficult to promote people who are out of sight because they become out of mind. Not to mention many situations, often involving conflicts, high priority, or large amounts of money, that require people to sit down in the same room and share information. So while we all spend more hours working, if we don’t get the face time we may be missing out on career opportunities.

Digital etiquette
Communication may have changed since 1922 when Emily Post wrote “Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics and at Home,” but politeness, kindness, respect, and discretion are still important. For example the simple thank you note may have been enhanced by technology. While certain situations still may require a handwritten note, email is acceptable for most others. I routinely use short email thank you notes to follow up with contacts, keep my name “top of mind” with prospective clients, and extend network opportunities. Here’s a few other digital Rules of Etiquette collected from a recent issue of Wired magazine:

(1) Provide subjects for all emails.

(2) Don’t follow more people on Twitter than follow you.

(3) No more than 20 tweets in 24 hours.

(4) Don’t type “BRB” (be right back). Just go and come back.

(5) Never apologize for a lame tweet or blog post.

(6) If your call drops, call back.

(7) Ditch the Bluetooth earpiece if you’re not actually using it.

(8) Don’t work all the time.

Anger management
A simple rule of thumb before responding to an email that makes you angry is, “Would you say it in person?” If not, don’t send it. Email can be a problematic communication tool because people do not have the benefit of body language and voice tone. Many experts suggest that body language alone makes up for as much as 80 percent of communication. Personally when an email hits my hot button, I force myself to wait 24 hours before sending a response. I may draft a hot response but never send it. Always offer to meet the person and talk face to face. Emails back and forth frequently make a bad situation worse. Never use offensive language in emails. Try to use an “I” statement as opposed to accusatory language. For example “I felt confused by your remarks,” instead of “You are a @@#$$@#$$.” Ask for clarification instead of jumping the gun.

The last laugh
Humor that works in person or even by phone sometimes doesn’t work well online because the human contact that puts things into context is missing. With digital media, be careful how you use sarcasm, satire, potentially inappropriate humor, or anything else that might be misconstrued. Remember that anything you post or send in an email or even text message can be forever copied, stored, or forwarded and re-read and end up places you never imagined. When committing something to writing in the digital age, be sure it is something that you really want to say because it could potentially end up going to a much wider audience in the future.

P2P the critical link in B2B
According to CTIA, the Wireless Association, in 2007 Americans sent close to 50 billion text messages per month. In 2008 that more than doubled to 110 billion text messages per month. However only face-to-face communication provides the opportunity to judge information through facial expression, body language, and tone of voice. That is why people-to-people (P2P) communication skills remain a primary career success factor in the business-to-business (B2B) world. Don’t rely solely on technology to share information, communicate ideas, and grow relationships.

Remember, for personal career success, technology is just another tool and not your latest BFF.

New paths mean new opportunity
Many people have been forced to deviate from planned career paths due to our recent economic challenges. More often than not, these new opportunities are not likely to be temporary. Therefore, they require you to refocus your goals, objectives, and strategies to get you back on track for personal success. Unfortunately, this period of adjustment may negatively impact your daily performance, and before you realize it, you have lost the new opportunity because you failed to embrace certain fundamentals of career success.

People skills
A survey by Harvard Business Review showed that people overwhelmingly prefer to work with people they like even when those people have less skills than highly competent jerks. If you are disliked by people you work with, it may become irrelevant whether you’re good at what you do, because other people will avoid working with you. Make yourself smile, even if you don’t feel like it. Do this consistently throughout the day, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised how others respond. Make a habit of expressing gratitude. When someone does something from which you benefit, even when they’re expected to, let them know you appreciate their effort.

Listening Skills Make a real effort to listen to everything that’s being said to you. Show people you are paying attention by making good eye contact and squarely facing them rather than sitting at an angle. Nod your head when you understand what they’re saying. Briefly summarize what the person has attempted to communicate to you, and they’ll know they’ve been heard. Don’t interrupt when someone else is speaking, and don’t complete their thoughts for them either. These behaviors irritate most people.

First impressions last
When someone meets you for the first time, they’ll draw conclusions in the first three seconds. They will evaluate how you dress, your body language, your demeanor, and your mannerisms. Don’t come to work poorly groomed or dress in inappropriate attire. Don’t tell off-color jokes, gossip about co-workers, or announce your views on race, religion, or the boss’ personality. Project an image of competence, character, and commitment. Be honest, use proper grammar, and avoid slang and expletives.

Be a team player
Don’t isolate yourself. Create relationships with others in your organization. People who network effectively have an inside track on resources and information. Adopt a positive can-do attitude, even in the face of criticism or in the case of nervousness. Don’t let fear of making a mistake paralyze you. Instead of saying, “I’ve never done that,” say, “I’ll learn how.” If you do make a mistake, admit it, and find the learning opportunity in the situation.

Be on time
Organizations need people they can depend on. The person you are meeting with is not interested in your “good excuse” for being late. Plan to arrive a few minutes early. Allow time for possible delays in traffic or directions. Arriving early is always better than arriving late. If the project deadline is Wednesday, first thing Thursday is not okay. Missing deadlines is not only unprofessional, it screws up other peoples’ schedules and might even make your boss look bad. When making commitments, be sure to under-promise and over-deliver.

Avoid personal business on company time

Every organization’s email and phone systems are for their business, not yours. An American Management Association study found that 76 percent of businesses monitor employee Web use and 55 percent review employee email messages. A growing number of organizations have established policies on personal Web use including personal postings on blogs. Among these, 26 percent have fired people for misusing the Internet and another 25 percent have fired people for email misuse. Keep personal phone calls brief and few. Never type anything in an e-mail that you don’t want read by your boss. Avoid the temptation to do online shopping or vacation planning and, especially, do not spend time job hunting for your next opportunity.

Avoid office romance
Office romances can be fairly common because the office is where we spend a third or more of our time. It is a nonthreatening environment where we have an opportunity to meet potential dating partners and learn more about them other than just what they look like. Yet office romances are almost always a bad idea. If you become involved with your boss, your accomplishments and promotions will be suspect; if you date a subordinate, you may risk charges of sexual harassment if the relationship ends badly. Everyone you work with will know about your romantic entanglement, and it will color their opinion of you, sometimes positively but usually negatively.

Create a personal development plan

To make the most of your new opportunity, you need a personal development plan. Whether your goal is to be a better employee, get a raise or promotion, or just stay focused, having a plan will help you succeed. Set objectives and plan your daily activities around achieving them. Manage your priorities and focus on those tasks that support your career goals. As Maria Robinson observed, “Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”

Measuring Profitability 

The starting point of improvement is always measurement. The standard formula for measuring law firm profitability was created by David Maister, noted expert on law firm management: Net Income Per Partner = (1 + Leverage) x (Blended Hourly Rate) x (Utilization) x (Realization) x (Margin). These factors, expressed as ratios, are interdependent, meaning one of them cannot be changed without affecting the others. For example, if you doubled your billing rate, profitability would also double, by definition. Of course, if you doubled your billing rate, realization would suffer as clients object to the higher cost by not paying bills timely, and utilization would suffer as clients switch to cheaper competitors. Therefore, understanding each factor is the key to executing the right steps to increase profitability. Leverage is the ratio of non-equity fee earners to equity partners. The most profitable firms in a 2007 LexisNexis survey had the highest billable hour leverage. The goal is to increase leverage once partners reach or exceed the target billable hour threshold. Since there are only so many hours an individual can work, if you want to increase profitability it is imperative that work be passed to another fee earner once that threshold is reached. Delegation is one lawyer behavior that should be rewarded by compensation committees. 

Blended Hourly Rate 

Blended Hourly Rate is the ratio of total fees earned divided by the total hours charged. In the Altman Weil survey, no firms planned on reducing their billing rates in 2009. Instead, most firms made “smaller than normal” increases. While it is important to increase billing rates annually to avoid devaluing your rates due to inflation, the real secret to beating inflation actually isn’t rate; it’s productivity. High productivity creates the gap (margin) between cost (which includes inflation) and revenue. The higher your margin, the less inflation hurts you.

Utilization

Utilization is the percentage of available capacity that is chargeable. For a law firm to be highly profitable, all fee earners must be fully utilized. Increasing the headcount of non-equity fee earners to handle accretive work (as opposed to absorbing work that could be handled by others) increases partner income. Attaining maximum productivity means getting the most output from your fee earners. The top performing firms had both associates and paralegals with productivity numbers closer to their partners. The best way to increase productivity is through incentives for partners to share work with associates.

Realization

Realization is the percentage of chargeable time actually billed and not written off. How efficient are you at converting your work to cash? Each percentage point lost represents money out of the pocket of the firm. If you can get control over pre-bill adjustments, your revenue will increase. Your work product is your inventory and it loses value every day it sits on your desk. Send bills out in a timely fashion. Stay on top of receivables. Be efficient in how you work, how you bill, and how you collect. Tracking realization at every step in the process will help your firm become more efficient and, thus, more profitable.

Margin

Margin is the firm’s net income, expressed as a percentage. It is the partners’ profits divided by firm revenues. A common mistake is to assume better profits come simply by reducing costs, increasing hourly rates, and increasing billable hours. Often, these tactics fail to achieve the objective, while also resulting in client dissatisfaction and problems with lawyer and staff morale. Increasing revenue, while maintaining the same expense structure, is the most direct approach to improving the firm’s bottom line.

Get the Right People on the Bus

Many lawyers make less money than they could because they either don’t have the right people or they don’t help those people maximize their potential. They struggle with frequent turnover and spend time hiring, supervising, training, and eventually firing people who just aren’t the right fit. Getting a new hire through the door is only the beginning; substantive training then provides a powerful incentive for employees to stay with the firm. Firms where employees learn to work together effectively and develop complementary skills have an advantage over their competitors.

Do the Math

Managing, recruiting, hiring, and training both staff and other lawyers is called “lost time.” A lawyer with an average hourly rate of $200 who loses one hour each day, five days per week, and 50 weeks per year loses $50,000 annually. If a committee of five lawyers gets involved, their firm loses $250,000 each year—that is, 1,250 hours—when they could have been billing time and getting more clients. In addition, the failure to outsource effective recruiting and development creates turnover, which can cost a firm in excess of $100,000 per occurrence. Lawyers make money by doing what they do best: practicing law. They should turn to other professionals to do what they do best, thereby maximizing available resources.

Lawyers can make more profits even in a recessionary economy. This requires leadership from partners and a willingness to invest in people and technology. In many firms the majority of the lost profit potential lies in the high level of reinvention among the lawyers. Lawyers should strive to increase their firm’s collective knowledge base, leverage their time, and strategically move beyond temporary solutions.

As Will Rogers correctly observed, “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”

Focus for success
Lawyers are frequently deluged with too much to do and too little time to do it. Creating a plan can be a positive solution. You can measure your progress and raise your self-confidence. Following a plan focused precisely on what you want to achieve allows you to concentrate your efforts. You’ll also quickly spot the distractions that might otherwise knock you off course. An effective plan helps you organize your time and maximize your resources so that you can make the most of your activity.

Creating an effective plan
To be effective, your plan should include goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics. Each goal is a simple statement of what you hope to get done. For example, your goal might be to add five new contacts to your network. Your objectives are the milestones by which you measure your progress toward achieving your goal. In this example, a target date for the acquisition of each contact becomes an objective. Strategies are the methods by which you will meet your objectives. For more effective networking, these might include learning how to work a room or how to use social media. Tactics are the actual activities required by the plan. In the current example, this could mean attending a class or reading a book on “how to work a room,” then attending a networking event and applying your new knowledge. A secondary tactic could be to follow up on any relevant leads within two weeks of the event.

Where do you want to go?
Creating relevant goals and a plan to achieve them shortens our journey to success. Try to express each of your goals as a positive statement. “Provide excellent client service” is better than “Don’t lose existing clients.” Focus on personal performance goals, not outcome goals. You want goals over which you have as much control as possible. It is very frustrating when you fail to achieve a personal goal for reasons beyond your control. Goals must be realistic and achievable. If a goal is too large, it may seem that you are not making progress towards it.

Personal marketing plans
If you want to get more clients and increase your personal productivity, you need to create a personal marketing plan. Start by setting marketing goals that are realistic and achievable. Define your markets and establish your objectives. Create your “elevator speech” as well as your other marketing materials. Choose an effective method to deliver your message to your target market. Get the first tactical event on your calendar. Many lawyers and their law firms are looking to expand their personal marketing using social media. By creating personal marketing plans, they are able to focus on specific objectives and design strategies to accomplish them.

Personal development plans
Many lawyers need help with more than just marketing. Personal productivity, legal skill training, client development, and firm management are just a few examples. Creating a personal development plan with measurable goals helps focus their activities on realistic and relevant objectives and timelines. They can allocate their time effectively and maximize available resources. A monthly evaluation of the lawyer’s progress against the stated objectives becomes a road map to success.

Practicing law is one of the most demanding professions, and the struggle to succeed can be overwhelming. Effective planning is necessary to help you assess your strengths, set goals, and stay on track. By choosing where you want to go and creating a detailed plan of action focused on realistic, achievable objectives, your chance of success increases exponentially. As Yogi Berra once said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, when you get there you’ll be lost.”

Six degrees of separation
The theory is that if a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they know, then everyone is at most six steps away from any other person on earth. In 1967, American sociologist Stanley Milgram tested the theory by selecting 160 people in Omaha, Neb., to each send a package to a stranger living in Sharon, Mass., using only personal contacts. The senders knew the recipient’s name, occupation and general location. They were instructed to send the package to someone they knew on a first-name basis who they thought was most likely to know the recipient personally. That person would do the same, and so on, until the package was personally delivered. The majority of the 160 packages reached their destination in six steps or less.

Six steps to finding a client

Here is an example of how a new client, completely unknown to me, was really only six steps away. This past summer a friend of mine (one) recommended a local recruiter (two) as a network contact. This recruiter introduced me to the education committee chair (three) of a legal association. When the committee needed a resource for a program, I was connected to the law firm administrator (four) hosting the program. At the conclusion of my presentation, I was approached by one of the attendees (five) who ultimately set up a meeting with her firm’s managing partners (six). That firm is now my client.

The Law of the Few

In John Guare’s play “Six Degrees of Separation,” one of the main characters observes that if “everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people, I find that extremely comforting, that we’re so close, but I also find it like Chinese water torture that we’re so close because you have to find the right six people to make the connection.” In Stanley Milgram’s experiment, more than half of the packages delivered went through the same three people. In his book, The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell calls this the Law of the Few. “Sprinkled among every walk of life are a handful of people with a truly extraordinary knack of making friends and acquaintances. They are Connectors.” Gladwell goes on to explain that connectors are important to have in your network not just because of the quantity of people they know but because of the quality of the people they know. Paul Revere succeeded because he knew the right people to contact in the towns outside Boston to spread the word. William Dawes did not.

Six steps to career transition

Here is an example where six steps to a successful career transition depended on the quality, not the quantity, of the connections. A few years ago, a law student was about to graduate with very limited job prospects. His father (one) talked to their neighbor (two) who happened to be a friend of mine (three). He asked me to meet with the student and see if I could help him advance his career. We developed a strategy whereby the student spent one year at a firm (four) gaining experience in a position he did not like. At the conclusion of his first year, I was able to introduce him as a qualified lawyer to a managing partner (five) at another firm. He impressed the lawyers (six) at that firm, made the transition, and is now on the verge of becoming a partner himself.

Six steps in the Information Age

In 2001, Duncan Watts, a professor at Columbia University, repeated Stanley Milgram’s experiment on the Internet. Using an email message as the “package,” Watts selected 19 targets in 157 countries. This “human web” eventually grew to more than 48,000 people, but the average number of intermediaries between originator and target ended up the same as in Milgram’s “snail mail” experiment (six). One of the main goals of this project was to determine why people choose the people to link with they do. Participants were asked to identify why they picked the person and what their relationship was with that person. The two most common reasons were geographic proximity and similarity of occupation. The two most common relationships were friends and co-workers. Duncan Watts’ conclusion was, “Despite enabling almost instantaneous global communication, email and the Internet is simply the tool used to transmit messages and does not appear to have made the world a more close-knit community. Compared with offline interactions like work, school, family, and community, I don’t see email as being a particularly compelling medium for generating social ties.”

We know an effective network is necessary to build a legal practice. To be effective, our network will include connectors, people who know the right people and lots of them. It will be necessary to find these critical links. Both social networking and technology are valuable tools, but our most effective relationships will come from traditional sources like work, family, and community. Building social capital (relationships) as well as cultural capital (knowledge and experience) will positively impact our ability to create financial capital. And it’s all just six steps away.

The essence of personal credibility

Mark Twain once said, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” Personal credibility requires both trustworthiness and expertise. Trustworthiness includes an established reliability, which generally comes from telling the truth. Expertise includes credentials, certifications, or quality of prior experience. Personal credibility is the power to inspire belief. Personal credibility can be enhanced by personal dynamism (charisma) and physical attractiveness. Credibility means what you say is capable of being believed. Credibility means what you do inspires belief and confidence. Each action must be underpinned by authenticity. In other words, only promise what you can deliver.

Creating personal credibility

Sandy Allgeier, in her book, The Personal Credibility Factor: How to Get It, Keep It, and Get It Back (If You’ve Lost It), emphasizes that personal credibility is “about respect, trust, and being believable.” In other words, credibility is about actions. What you do forms other people’s opinions of you, shapes their relationships with you, and helps them decide whether to trust and respect you. “Our impressions, thoughts, and opinions are constantly being formed and reformed, most often in our subconscious. For this reason, it is what people do that determines our belief, respect, and trust in them – it is what we all do that determines personal credibility.” Keep your commitments. Return phone calls. Meet deadlines, especially those promised to others. Clients will appreciate your attention to small details like personalized emails or handwritten notes.

Communicating with credibility

Personal credibility is enhanced through consistent verbal and nonverbal communication. Credibility can be lost if you don’t keep your word, whether you have communicated it in writing or verbally. Listen and think before you speak. Effective listening can be one of your most influential tools. Observe and be very attentive to body language and nonverbal signals. Remember to be yourself. Joining the right clubs, travelling in the right circles, and attending high-profile events may cause you to try and be someone you are not. Instead, develop an expertise in a given area and be willing to share acquired knowledge with others.  

Marketing with credibility

Client development is all about persuading people to like and trust you. Potential clients want personal credibility when retaining a lawyer. Professionalism plays a key role. Make sure your image and appearances, from presentations to business cards to Web pages, convey excellence and credibility. Do your research and know how to deploy personal details that will strike a chord with potential clients. Use personal history to find common interests. Sharing critical details such as school affiliations, your hometown, or even a common personal achievement helps create personal credibility.

Winning with credibility

Successful trial lawyers know that when delivering their opening statement, their personal credibility is on the line. You are telling the jury what you believe the evidence will show. In many ways, it is a promise you make to the jury. By closing arguments, you can tell the jury, based on the evidence presented, you kept your promise and your opponent did not. Jurors look to lawyers to tell how a case is progressing. If you are confident, well-prepared and well-organized you will create immediate credibility with jurors. Jurors will assume you would not have taken a case that didn’t have merit. As long as you maintain personal credibility, regardless of the circumstances, you will successfully influence jurors. 

Ambrose Bierce, the famous American writer of the late 19^th century, observed the following about character and credibility: “In each human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass and a nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal activity.” To create the personal credibility necessary to be successful, every lawyer would do well to keep their tiger and nightingale in balance with their pig and ass.

What is social competence?

Effective lawyers have a high degree of social competence. They have developed the skills to confidently engage in group social activities while looking to achieve defined objectives. This is a critical skill for creating a network of sustained relationships. These relationships are the cornerstone to building a productive network. As I approached the holiday party, I knew certain people I wanted to meet would be inside. I was prepared and confident.

How to work a room

The value of learning how to “work a room” begins with understanding the fundamental difference between business networking and having fun. My activities at the bar association party are considerably different from my activities at a neighbor’s party. This distinction is especially important to avoid the “delusion of activity,” a common misconception that simply attending as many events as possible will create success. Business networking is a focused activity that requires an effective strategy to produce results.

Do your homework. You will want to know who is hosting the event and why are they having it. This will give you an idea of who else may be attending and help determine your objectives. In other words, why are you going? You may have an interest in supporting an organization’s activities or in the topic discussed during the event’s program. Contrast this with going to an event primarily to meet a specific person. While the former activity may or may not help your network development, the latter is specifically intended to do so. My goal attending the bar association’s holiday party is to meet specific lawyers who I knew were likely to be there but with whom I had no prior contact. For lawyers I already know but want to make sure I connect with at the holiday party, I will send a quick email or make a phone call confirming their attendance in advance of the event. This preparation sets the stage for a successful networking event.

Energy, effort, enthusiasm are required. Effective networking at social activities doesn’t happen by chance. Plan your time so you can arrive early and stay late. Just before entering the event, take a deep breath and put on your happy face. Raise your personal energy level. Meet the host, and offer to help set up or facilitate event activities. Approach and welcome anyone who appears alone or uncertain. Introduce people to each other, and try to be a conversation starter. However, remember your personal goal is to mingle and have multiple conversations. Getting food, a drink, or helping with activities can be an effective method to enter and exit groups of people and conversations.

The personal touch. Most of us are comfortable being part of a large crowd, yet it’s the one-on-one conversation that is challenging for many people. However, direct personal interaction creates the relationships we need for effective networking. While many of these skills may be common sense, without focus and practice, they can be overwhelmed by our human instincts of caution, hesitancy, and insecurity.

Take baby steps. When approaching someone, always look them in the eye. Smile when you say hello. Introduce yourself, and extend your hand. Be sure to make full contact and squeeze firmly but not overly tight or long. Concentrate on them. Do not look over their shoulder while they are talking, searching the crowd for another contact. Ask them for a business card. Your goal is to never leave a conversation without one, and the ask usually leads to a mutual exchange. Never offer your card first. Acquiring their card will not only help you remember their name, but give you their contact information for later follow up.

Conversation starters. Dale Carnegie once said, “People’s favorite subject is themselves.” When meeting people, ask about them. What do they do? Where do they work? Why are they attending? Listen for common interests from which you can create conversation. Be sure you know current events, especially when attending events outside your home city. You should know the top three local news or sports stories, and the weather forecast. Humor can be very tricky and is best left to comedians. However, laughing at someone else’s joke creates instant friendship, especially if something funny happens and you are both sharing the moment. If there is an activity associated with the event, you should have a basic understanding of the subject matter. Never criticize the event, the food, or the location. You can’t be sure who may be listening or who may be connected to whom.

Create relationships

Your goal is to make friends, not contacts. Choose your networking events accordingly so you will enjoy going to them. You are much more likely to meet people with common interests and create effective relationships. Be a facilitator. Help people get drinks, food, check their coats, or otherwise get involved with the event. Always be polite to everyone, including staff and remember to say “please” and “thank you.” Simple etiquette will distinguish you. Be sure to locate the host or organizers of the event, and always thank them before leaving.

Personally, the bar association’s holiday party was a success. I made a point to congratulate the planning committee chair as we headed out the door. Snow was lightly falling, the Christmas tree in the square was lit up and my pocket was full of the business cards of new opportunities.