Posted In: Business Development, Client Service, Law Firm Resilience, Legal Sales
Law Firm Sales: Keeping in Touch is Everyone’s Job
I felt compelled to write this blog about keeping in touch. I am amazed at how many people who have been laid off or furloughed have reached out to our team over the past few months. To me, this is similar to reaching out to clients when one has no active current matters keeping them busy 24×7, and asking for work. Whether it is a job you need, cases and deals you are seeking, or other favors, earn the right to ask by keeping in touch. Whether you are a practicing lawyer, or a business professional working at a firm, keep in touch with your network.
It is essential to stay connected. That gives one the “right” of sorts, to ask for work, ask for favors, or free advice. Most people are willing to help others. At the top of the list are people who occasionally call to say hello, and who check in from time to time. Try not to let years go by before reaching out. Keeping in touch only when one needs something is not acceptable. Of course, most of us are willing to help because we are good people and good professionals. Here are some simple tips for keeping in touch even when you are super busy and don’t seem to have the time:
- Check-in with your contacts once a year at a minimum to say hello and see how they are doing. Regardless of how confident one is with keeping in touch, it is a critical piece of doing business.
- Send a hand-written holiday card to at least 50-100 of your top contacts/clients/business friends. This action goes a long way, and e-cards are impersonal and get deleted before they are even opened. Start the list in July/August timeframe, have your assistant print labels, and send after Thanksgiving. It is an easy reason for keeping in touch that drops “in your lap” once a year. Just do it. If the firm does not supply them, buy your own cards (as some of our clients do).
- Look for interesting articles, respond to LinkedIn posts, make introductions from one contact to another—these are all ways to keep in touch on a very simple level.
- If someone has helped you in some way, send a thank you note, a simple $25 gift card to a favorite coffee shop, or a bottle of wine. Acknowledge their assistance, especially if you received a referral from someone. And, it is true if you call someone to seek their advice about something. Acknowledge the time they gave you, whether it was 30 minutes or longer.
Keep in touch, and good things will come from those “touches.”
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