In my September and October columns, I have been helping you become a lifelong “contact curator.”
The process of turning contacts into two-way, giving, and life-long relationships follows a sequence of prescribed events: developing your list, sorting for success, planning and taking action, following up, and tracking progress. This month’s article covers planning and taking action.
Figuring out how to approach contacts one-by-one is very inefficient considering very few of them are going to turn into clients or referring advocates very quickly. You also don’t have that much free time.
Legal services have a long lead time in converting contacts into clients. This is why it makes sense to sort contacts into groups with similar profiles and create plans and actions starting with groups instead of individuals. Once you find someone in a group that may be interested in your services, you can then address their unique situation.
You probably have an address book, Rolodex, pile of business cards, or Outlook or other e-contact list filled with the following categories of contacts:
• family, friends, and other personal contacts;
• legal co-workers (inside your firm);
• legal colleagues (outside your firm);
• clients;
• business acquaintances (people you know); and,
• potential clients (people you do not know but want to provide legal services for).
Congratulations. The above demonstrates the most basic method of sorting your contact list. (If you use an electronic contact list, it allows you to categorize your contacts, which will then allow you to revisit your sorted groups.)
The first step in planning is to describe what you want from each group of contacts — the goal. The probability of success rises when you can translate your goals into measurable objectives. Put a stake in the ground and define your goals in tangible terms. Setting goals and defining objectives are the first two mandatory parts of creating plans for your contact groups.
Going back to our example, let’s now take our groups and give them fictitious goals and objectives:
1. Family, friends, and other personal contacts
a. Goal: To have my family and friends advocate and refer potential clients to me.
b. Objectives: Obtain at least 4 relevant introductions a year from family and friends.
2. Legal co-workers
a. Goal: To have my legal co-workers advocate and refer potential work and clients to me.
b. Objectives: Obtain at least one matter a month from colleagues and four introductions a year.
3. Legal colleagues
a. Goal: To have my legal colleagues advocate and refer potential work and clients to me.
b. Objectives: Obtain at least one matter a quarter and four introductions a year.
4. Clients
a. Goal: To have my clients want to retain me, give me more work, and be a referring advocate.
b. Objectives: Retain 100 per cent of current revenue, obtain a new matter in another legal service, and four introductions a year.
5. Business acquaintances
a. Goal: To have my business acquaintances give me work or refer potential clients to me.
b. Objectives: Obtain at least one matter a year and two introductions a year.
6. Potential clients (let’s say you’re a small business lawyer in this example)
a. Goals: To obtain new matters in each of my four major areas of legal services:
• Business formation (incorporation, partnerships, joint ventures);
• Contract negotiation and drafting;
• Equipment leasing; and,
• Real estate.
b. Objectives: To obtain one new matter in each of the above areas.
You have now accomplished what few people actually do; take the time out to chart your roadmap to a successful career by curating your contacts!
The second step in planning is to now get down to the details and describe exactly how you are going to go about meeting your objectives and accomplishing your goals. Let’s continue on with the above hypothetical example focusing on the legal colleagues group.
Think about the sequence of actions that has to take place to achieve your objectives. These actions will probably break into stages. The stages of actions are called “strategies” and the actions themselves are called “tactics.” I will only break out the first couple of strategies but you will get the idea. I recommend using a spreadsheet so that you can also insert timing, costs, and revenue. This work can turn into your personal business plan.
Strategies and tactics for legal colleagues:
1. Sort my list of legal colleagues into usable groups.
a. Remove the legal colleagues that cannot refer work in my desired areas of practice.
b. Sort those remaining legal colleagues into two groups: colleagues I know well, and those I don’t know well or at all.
c. Rank these contacts in order of highest probability of referring work.
2. Create a communication to legal colleagues about reciprocal referrals.
a. Create a paragraph about the benefits in participating in reciprocal referrals with you.
b. Create a short bio for legal colleagues who know you.
c. Create a longer bio for legal colleagues who don’t know you.
d. Create alternate closing messages that either drive people to your web site, to receive a telephone call, or to invite them to a face-to-face meeting.
3. Produce an e-mail message or letter using the relevant messages. You ended up creating four variations of a communication that can work for hundreds of individuals in your contact group. This is an effective and efficient way to manage your contacts into relationships.
| Cannot refer business | Salutation | Message | Bio | |
| Can refer business | Knows me (first name salutation) | high probability of referrals | face-to-face meeting | short bio |
| low probability of referrals | telephone call | short bio | ||
| Doesn’t know me (formal salutation) | high probability of referrals | face-to-face meeting | long bio | |
| low probability of referrals | link to web site | long bio |
4. Send the messages (remember to comply with CASL!).
5. Follow up and schedule meetings.
6. Track responses, measure results, evaluate success, and adjust your messages.
Do the same thinking and planning with each of your contact groups. Don’t pressure yourself with having to do all of it in the first year. Time your plan so that it spans a number of years. Your career is a multi-year project! Bite off what you can chew.
You may think that the above will take you too long to bother with. Thinking about the above took me two hours. Imagine if you invested a day of your life strategically planning your career through curating your contacts. That upfront investment in planning will pay off multiple times over.
