Posted In: Business Development
Law Firm Business Development: Extroverts Beware
One of the more common themes that comes up during my initial coaching session with new coachees is that they feel that they are too much of an introvert to ever be good at business development (sales). This is one of the great business development myths that is perpetuated by non-business development professionals and, perhaps, many other introverted professionals who are fearful of being perceived as a “salesperson”.
A gregarious personality is most definitely not a requisite to be great at developing business. In fact, despite the fact that we say that business development is “relationship development”, you don’t even need to like people all that much to be great at business development. As you might suspect, the vast majority of my coachees are very intelligent and good at solving problems. These individuals are also good at research and preparation. So, I ask my coachees to change the way they think about business development. Combining their research and preparation traits, I ask them to think about sales as being about identifying a client’s business issues through simple research techniques and then using that information to solve business problems for the client through their legal service offerings. Give it a try.
The reality is that it’s less important to know how to sell than it is to know why (and how) people buy. By placing the prospective clients’ business issues and organizational objectives ahead of your own need to “sell stuff”, you will be way ahead of the game; introvert or otherwise.
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