But what happens then, once you get it "in reach"?

 

For many of us introverted, autonomous lawyers, the answer is... absolutely nothing. We cultivate these lovely long lists of contacts, and we think and act as if having a bunch of electronic synapses means that the nerves are firing and meaningful message content is actually being communicated among all the cells. Not so. Those of you who gauge your networking success by the sheer number of contacts you can cultivate digitally (whether or not these contacts speak English or have any interest whatever in your professional services) need to get this through your head: you are not "networked" unless you make your net work, which is to say, unless you work your net.

 

A relationship game, not a numbers game

 

Whether you are using networking for business development, conducting a job search or just general professional self-aggrandizement, your networking efforts must extend beyond simply reaching out and touching someone - or a lot of someones. All you networkers - whether zealous or reluctant - must remember this: Contact Does Not Mean Impact.

 

A robo-caller may succeed in contacting me when I pick up my phone, but has no chance whatever of impacting me before I hang up. Or I may say yes to your LinkedIn request (and I usually do; what harm can saying yes do?), but that contact does not mean we have forged a functioning relationship.

 

It is far more important to know how to trigger an interpersonal impact, and in successful networking, impact - positive, actionable impact -- comes from one activity in particular: following up on initial contact.

 

Okay, I see you. Now what?

 

We're ready for your rebuttal here: you're going to say that powerful, positive impact also comes from visibility. All those articles you write, blogs you post, your Super Lawyer award (six years in a row), your year as Chairman of the Bar Association. Yeah, they count. They help bolster the brand, the image, the rep, the cred. But truth to tell, they generally do not translate directly into business: into new client relationships, into client trust and rapport - into mutually interdependent interactions. Those things come most and best from the impact that results from face-to-face interactions, from relationships that have a nuanced personal dimension.

 

FU means... Follow Up

 

Word of mouth may open the door but it does not close the sale. It's follow up that does that. Let me say that yet again: Following Up. Personally. Frequently. Appropriately. Effectively. Repeatedly. This is the part where lawyers' self-marketing efforts most often crater, because all this following up stuff is, by and large, a real drag and lawyers hate it: the calls (and repeated calls), the banal lunches lubricated with humdrum pleasantries, the articles, the speeches, participation on conference panels, rubber-chicken dinners and attendance at various meaningless events. All those things that take them away from practicing law, billing hours and showcasing their substantive legal expertise.

 

Just as social media freaks fall in love with their contact numbers, mindless networkers buy into the old salesman's numbers myth: If I get one sale for every 10 rejections, I should go out and try to get as many rejections as I can, right?  

 

When you only have a limited amount of time for personal follow-up, setting priorities becomes Job One. You have to distinguish Tier One impacts from Tier Two contacts. That is, unless/until you have a lot of time available for mining low-probability leads, take the time to identify the people with whom you can hope to cultivate high-leverage, high-traction impact. Who are the people with high impact potential?

• People you have justifiable reason to believe may be Potential Clients
• Referral Resources: people who know others' needs and what it takes to address them
• Centers of Influence: people who can make things happen
• Connectors who delight and excel in bringing others together

Finally, to keep your networking interactions from devolving into a dull, daunting and disappointing numbers game, it helps to remember the fundamental characteristics of Christopher Columbus's successful voyages: 1) They had purpose. 2) They had direction. 3) They maintained momentum. 4) They rewarded perseverance. Put another way, effective networking is a human activity, not an electronic passivity.

 

 

 

A senior executive in a large U.S. law firm recently sent me a challenging question that the partners wanted answers to: "Is there any proof that collaboration and teamwork improves a law firm's performance?" I sent the question to my colleagues at Edge and you could practically hear them muttering in their morning coffee across the countries we serve. The answers I got included "Are they serious? Of course it improves!" and "The corporate world is so convinced of this that their businesses have been working in teams for years."

 

I had to admit that it was a tough question. "Compared to what?" would be one response. There is no clear-cut empirical answer for law firms. To reframe the question: "Can we measure collaboration, demonstrate that it improves performance, and then reward it?" I believe that (1) good collaboration measurements exist; and (2) compensation systems can be tweaked to promote collaboration even when individualism is the reigning mode in lawyers' business development.

 

Business Development Collaboration Measurements

 

Two kinds of collaboration should be measured: (i) collaboration in business development, and (ii) internal teamwork in getting quality work done. In this article, I suggest some business development measurements.

 

A firm should measure both efforts and results. In preparation for annual self-appraisals and compensation interviews, partners should track this data throughout the year. Some examples are:

• Cross-referrals of existing clients to other practice groups (number made, number that lead to new revenue);
• Referral of new business prospects outside of your expertise or geographical location (and how many lead to new engagements);
• Participation in RFP responses and pitches (and success record);
• Joint speaking events and collaborative CLE offerings to clients, prospects or industry;
• Collaborative writing for publications (e.g., with an associate);
• Frequency of taking on a mentoring or buddy role for lateral senior lawyers; and
• Initiatives in forming cross-group teams to pitch new business to existing clients (without waiting for an RFP); success of those efforts.

This record keeping will only be effective if the marketing department provides forms and easy ways of "looking back," because many lawyers will do the tracking only in last month. Nevertheless, the individual lawyers should be responsible for keeping the data and reporting in table form at year-end.

 

Going back to our doubting law firm, imagine if they had promoted collection of this data for two years and then correlated high collaboration to the financial performance and business prospects of those teams?  

 

Next month, we'll explore how to measure internal teamwork and how to assess these subjective factors in compensation.

 

David Cruickshank advises firms on talent development, leadership and compensation.

 

Contact the author, David Cruickshank.