TRP 213: The Anatomy of a Rainmaking Organization with Jacob Parks

[00:00:10] You're listening to the Rainmaking Podcast, hosted by high-stakes headhunter, author and

[00:00:19] professional speaker, Scott Love.

[00:00:23] You're listening to the Rainmaking Podcast.

[00:00:26] And my name is Scott Love.

[00:00:27] Thank you for joining me on the show.

[00:00:29] Our guest today is Jacob Parks.

[00:00:31] And our topic is The Anatomy of a Rainmaking Organization.

[00:00:35] Jacob and I go pretty deep on how organizations function and what you can do to improve

[00:00:40] yours.

[00:00:40] If you're in the business of getting business, this is an episode that you don't want to

[00:00:44] miss.

[00:00:45] Let me tell you a little bit about Jacob.

[00:00:47] He's a very impressive individual.

[00:00:49] He's a president of Strategy for Pi, Profitable's Idea Exchange.

[00:00:53] He's also the author of Never Say Sell, a guide to how professional firms expand

[00:00:58] their business with key clients.

[00:01:00] Jacob's the real deal.

[00:01:01] He's done the work.

[00:01:02] He also leads the Pi Professional Services CMO and CGO network.

[00:01:07] And as a graduate of Gonzaga's MBA program, having previously taught undergraduate

[00:01:12] business students, he's led client teams for McKinsey, Accenture and KPMG, among others.

[00:01:19] I hope you get some great ideas from my conversation with Jacob.

[00:01:21] I've put all of his contact information, including his LinkedIn link and his company

[00:01:26] link on the show notes.

[00:01:27] And no matter where you listen to the show, go to the show notes and you'll be

[00:01:30] able to connect with Jacob directly.

[00:01:32] As always, this show is sponsored by Leopard Solutions Legal Intelligence, sweet

[00:01:37] of products, FirmScape and Leopard BI.

[00:01:40] Push ahead of the pack with the power of Leopard.

[00:01:43] And now here's my conversation with my friend, Jacob Parks.

[00:01:46] Thanks for listening.

[00:01:49] Hey, this is Scott Love with the Rain Making Podcast.

[00:01:51] I've got a special guest today.

[00:01:53] I'm really excited about this topic.

[00:01:55] And our topic is the anatomy of a rain making organization.

[00:01:59] And our guest is Jacob Parks.

[00:02:01] Jacob, thanks for joining me on the show today.

[00:02:03] Thanks for having me.

[00:02:03] It's got him thrilled to be here.

[00:02:04] Yes.

[00:02:05] So let's get right into it, man.

[00:02:06] So the anatomy of a rain making organization, what does that look like?

[00:02:10] How would you describe that?

[00:02:11] Let's kind of get started with some definitions.

[00:02:13] What do you think the ideal rain making organization looks like?

[00:02:16] Yeah, so I think it's a great question, Scott, although I don't think

[00:02:19] it's that easy to define.

[00:02:21] Traditionally, I think we spend a lot of our time talking about people who do

[00:02:25] great business development and professional services as rain makers

[00:02:28] and appropriately so.

[00:02:29] But too often, I think we focus on the individual and the focus on

[00:02:33] the individual sort of lends itself to some of our corny sales cliches

[00:02:38] that in professional services, we really want to avoid.

[00:02:41] And so I always talk about this.

[00:02:42] But what we don't want to have are people saying things like,

[00:02:45] I can sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman and white gloves,

[00:02:47] or I can sell a furnace in the Mojave Desert.

[00:02:50] All of that is like those analogies are wholly inappropriate to our world.

[00:02:54] And in fact, I think a lot of times when I see great rain makers,

[00:02:57] they're not necessarily the outbuilding gregarious star that you think

[00:03:01] they are. They're contemplative, thoughtful client delivery people.

[00:03:05] And so we've sort of tried to learn a lot about what rain makers look like.

[00:03:10] But interestingly to me, there are a bunch of institutional barriers

[00:03:14] that exist when it comes to building a fully-fledged rain making organization.

[00:03:19] Having a few that do it well can carry your firm forward.

[00:03:23] But I actually think moving toward world class business development

[00:03:26] is having a cohesive team where everybody's kind of playing their role.

[00:03:30] Absolutely. I think that is ideal, but institutional barriers.

[00:03:34] Let's kind of talk about that.

[00:03:35] What do you think are some of the more problematic and more common

[00:03:39] institutional barriers that you've seen?

[00:03:41] Well, I think so one is just the obvious kind of incentive part

[00:03:44] of delivering for clients.

[00:03:46] So let's just say that you're an attorney

[00:03:48] and you have an eight million dollar book of business

[00:03:50] and six million dollars of that book is with one single client.

[00:03:54] And there are probably opportunities to introduce your litigation partners

[00:03:57] or your tax partners or other people into that opportunity.

[00:04:00] But you're paying for your nice house and putting your kids through college.

[00:04:04] The incentives don't necessarily line up for you to take on more risk

[00:04:07] with your trusted relationship in order to create value for the firm.

[00:04:11] And so I think there is sometimes just a natural resistance to doing it

[00:04:15] because I think that we are somewhat programmed to mitigate risk

[00:04:18] as opposed to seize opportunities.

[00:04:20] So I think that's a big part of it.

[00:04:21] I actually think that there's like a what do my partners do problem as well.

[00:04:27] What do you mean by that again?

[00:04:28] Let's tease this up as our second issue.

[00:04:29] The first is the incentive part for delivering for clients.

[00:04:32] What's the second one?

[00:04:33] The second one is just that we don't know everything that our partners do.

[00:04:36] So as you grow in your career of professional services,

[00:04:40] typically you build a business on a narrow niche.

[00:04:43] You start out as an associate delivering hours and doing different kinds of projects.

[00:04:48] And then in order to become partner and build a practice,

[00:04:50] you might have a very specific niche on some type of law.

[00:04:54] Well, you don't know every single niche that your partners do.

[00:04:57] And so the idea that you're going to cross sell other opportunities

[00:05:00] for your partners is hard to do if you don't understand it.

[00:05:03] And so how do we fix that?

[00:05:05] It's incredibly difficult.

[00:05:07] And I think that, you know, that probably brings me to my next challenge,

[00:05:11] which is the technology challenge,

[00:05:13] which is the technology that we have for business development,

[00:05:16] the tech stack that exists with CRM and outreach tools

[00:05:21] and all of these different things is incredibly powerful.

[00:05:24] And it never gets taken advantage of.

[00:05:26] Yeah, yeah, why do you think that is?

[00:05:28] I mean, I kind of know the answer.

[00:05:29] Nobody puts information into CRM.

[00:05:31] I was talking actually to an attorney this morning,

[00:05:33] a partner in a firm, and he was saying, you know,

[00:05:35] there are some weeks when I work 70 hours a week

[00:05:38] on a litigation case or something like that.

[00:05:40] The idea that I'm going to go home at the end of that

[00:05:42] and put multiple fields into Salesforce

[00:05:45] or into whatever the CRM system is, is just not likely.

[00:05:50] But I think that there's really good news on this subject,

[00:05:52] which is that I do believe that this is one of the areas

[00:05:55] that AI is going to solve on our behalf.

[00:05:58] Oh, yeah, not that far from like, let's say

[00:06:00] I'm having a conversation with you, Scott, and you're like,

[00:06:02] geez, this person out in Texas is suing me for something I did.

[00:06:06] And these are kind of the factors in real time.

[00:06:10] We're going to be able to sort of query our AIs internally

[00:06:13] and say lawsuit, Texas oil rights or whatever the case may be

[00:06:17] and be able to spit out in real time.

[00:06:20] This is the work we've done.

[00:06:21] This is the right partner to introduce.

[00:06:23] And here's a case study or a story that might reflect

[00:06:25] how we can serve this client.

[00:06:27] I actually think this challenge isn't that important

[00:06:30] over the next 10 years, because I do think

[00:06:32] that there's a realistic chance that technology solves it

[00:06:35] and helps us.

[00:06:36] But I have one tip for people on this,

[00:06:38] which is to rather than talk about what you do,

[00:06:42] the sort of mechanism by which you deliver value to your clients

[00:06:46] and flip that on its head and try to get the firm

[00:06:49] to only talk about how you solve problems for clients.

[00:06:52] Not ideal litigation, but I go in and I help people

[00:06:56] get the most outstanding outcome they possibly can

[00:06:59] when they confront an unfortunate situation with this,

[00:07:02] this or this, right?

[00:07:03] And what that does is it positions everybody

[00:07:05] in the client's mind.

[00:07:06] They're all thinking about how clients' problems get solved.

[00:07:10] The intricacies of my unique practice of law

[00:07:13] or consulting or engineering are relatively unimportant.

[00:07:16] I just need to know what the outcome is that you can deliver

[00:07:19] because as a generalist in this particular specialty,

[00:07:23] I can talk about the outcomes you deliver,

[00:07:25] but I can't really talk about the workload

[00:07:27] that goes into creating that outcome.

[00:07:29] Yeah, right, right.

[00:07:29] So let me ask you this for a second, Jacob.

[00:07:32] So we were talking about the incentive part

[00:07:34] of delivering for clients.

[00:07:36] We don't know what every all the other partners do.

[00:07:38] And the third is a technology challenge.

[00:07:40] And I like what you talked about here

[00:07:42] is rather than talk about what you do.

[00:07:44] And I would say this might be a framework

[00:07:46] or maybe a paradigm perspective

[00:07:49] because we've all been taught,

[00:07:51] well, I'm an intellectual property litigator.

[00:07:52] I do patent litigation for Barma Life Science

[00:07:55] on the branded side. That's what I do.

[00:07:58] But instead, this might be kind of,

[00:08:01] I mean, would this be a training thing

[00:08:02] that leaders have to do with their people?

[00:08:04] Let me, so this is kind of,

[00:08:05] we're going down a different area here

[00:08:07] about let's just call it paradigm shifts.

[00:08:10] I'm trying to get some structure.

[00:08:12] Let's call it the paradigm,

[00:08:13] the paradigm of how we have to think.

[00:08:15] And so tell me then with this issue,

[00:08:19] is this paradigm issue an institutional issue

[00:08:23] or just the way it is

[00:08:25] across most professional services organizations?

[00:08:28] It tends to be the way it is

[00:08:29] across most professional services organizations.

[00:08:31] And you ask that this is sort of a training thing.

[00:08:33] It's a key part of what we do in a lot of workshops is

[00:08:36] instead of doing like an icebreaker,

[00:08:38] one of the icebreakers that we will institute is

[00:08:41] introduce the person next to you

[00:08:42] and tell me what problem they solve for clients.

[00:08:45] Oh, that's interesting.

[00:08:46] Hi, this is Scott and Scott finds

[00:08:49] lateral partners for firms

[00:08:51] when someone's looking to move or whatever.

[00:08:53] Right? I come up with a pithy way of saying it.

[00:08:55] And so you start to learn

[00:08:56] the mechanism of introducing your peers.

[00:08:59] Oh, wow.

[00:09:00] I also think that's great.

[00:09:02] And maybe for structure there,

[00:09:03] I think there's an interesting thing with training, too,

[00:09:06] which is that pre-COVID training

[00:09:09] oftentimes acted as what we call a sidewalk coaching,

[00:09:12] which is to say you get brought to a pitch

[00:09:14] or you get brought to a client site

[00:09:16] and you have an hour along with the client

[00:09:18] or with the key person.

[00:09:19] And our chairman always jokes.

[00:09:21] The only thing you get to do in the first meeting

[00:09:23] is not pick your nose.

[00:09:24] And that's a joke.

[00:09:25] But like you're just learning how to be in these meetings

[00:09:28] and you walk outside the meeting

[00:09:29] and on the sidewalk, you say, Scott, what did you hear?

[00:09:33] And without fail, the partner heard 30 things

[00:09:35] that the associate did not hear in that meeting.

[00:09:38] And it builds this muscle for business development.

[00:09:40] But unfortunately we had a pandemic

[00:09:43] and all of those activities atrophied.

[00:09:46] And increasingly people are not quite as active

[00:09:49] on staying another night in the city

[00:09:51] and having dinner with a client

[00:09:52] or coming in early and having dinner.

[00:09:54] All of those kinds of skills have atrophied a little bit.

[00:09:57] And so I think that there is a need for training

[00:10:00] in business development skill, particularly for new partners.

[00:10:03] But I don't think getting that training right

[00:10:06] is actually that easy.

[00:10:07] Yeah, I would agree.

[00:10:09] And let me kind of come back to that in a second

[00:10:11] because I've got a couple of questions and thoughts about that

[00:10:14] that I think people would want to hear about.

[00:10:16] Let me go back over the institutional barriers that exist.

[00:10:20] The incentive part for delivering.

[00:10:21] We don't know everything partners do

[00:10:23] that tech challenge any other institutional barriers

[00:10:25] that you've seen from your years of experience in doing this.

[00:10:29] I think one of the other ones,

[00:10:31] I don't know that I would call it an institutional barrier,

[00:10:33] but I think that the structure of the organization

[00:10:35] creates limitations.

[00:10:36] And there's a bunch of different really interesting stuff

[00:10:39] going on here.

[00:10:40] So you know this too well,

[00:10:41] but all these professional service firms are in big matrices.

[00:10:45] Right? So it's like we go first by industry,

[00:10:47] second by service line, third by geo overlay of services

[00:10:51] or executives we serve or whatever, right?

[00:10:54] They're quite complex.

[00:10:54] And so without fail,

[00:10:56] those structures create difficulties

[00:10:59] in the way that we grow clients internally.

[00:11:02] And each flavor creates a different difficulty.

[00:11:04] But one of the fascinating things I think that's going on

[00:11:07] more so outside of legal right now

[00:11:10] is the impact that the profit creation engine

[00:11:14] takes on the organization.

[00:11:15] And what I mean by that is,

[00:11:16] is it a partnership with sort of, you know,

[00:11:19] a thousand partners who have their own P&Ls

[00:11:22] with all sort of a lot of little power centers everywhere?

[00:11:25] Or is it a company like an Accenture or a Cognizant

[00:11:27] that's gone public

[00:11:29] and faces public company scrutiny on a quarterly basis?

[00:11:33] Right. Because those institutions develop wildly different

[00:11:37] business development strategies.

[00:11:39] Yeah.

[00:11:40] You know, let me make a comment

[00:11:41] and I wanted to get your perspective on this.

[00:11:43] And when we talk about the structure of the organization

[00:11:46] we're also talking about partner compensation

[00:11:49] and is it open, meaning everybody knows

[00:11:51] what everybody else makes or closed?

[00:11:54] Nobody knows.

[00:11:55] And I've had actually guests on here talk about partner comp

[00:11:59] and this only relates to law firms

[00:12:01] and maybe it relates to other professional services firms.

[00:12:04] I'm not sure.

[00:12:05] But he said,

[00:12:06] I agree that the best model is to have a closed comp

[00:12:10] where the chairman or whoever the managing partner

[00:12:12] and that partner,

[00:12:13] that's it nobody else knows

[00:12:15] how much that person is making.

[00:12:17] Why is that good?

[00:12:18] It works because it takes out the variable of,

[00:12:21] gosh, what happens if I share my client?

[00:12:24] Now there are two things you need to have for that to work.

[00:12:27] Number one, you have to trust your leadership.

[00:12:29] And number two, you have to trust your colleagues.

[00:12:31] That's why in some firms,

[00:12:32] if the trust isn't there, it's not going to work.

[00:12:36] So anyway, those are my thoughts.

[00:12:37] What do you think about that, Jacob?

[00:12:38] What's been your experience in terms of

[00:12:40] how that relates to sharing work?

[00:12:42] I tend to agree because

[00:12:44] I've never thought that someone deserved

[00:12:46] to be paid more than me.

[00:12:47] I'm kidding, but I think that's a real issue in the world.

[00:12:50] It's like, I'm adding a lot of value.

[00:12:52] Why is it not making more than me?

[00:12:53] And we all create value in different ways.

[00:12:56] An equally interesting question to me is,

[00:12:59] do you make public the contribution

[00:13:01] to business development at a partner level?

[00:13:03] Oh wait, tell me about that.

[00:13:04] Tell me about that.

[00:13:05] Say that again.

[00:13:06] Do you make public,

[00:13:06] tell me that again, please.

[00:13:08] Do you make public the compensation

[00:13:09] or the business development contribution

[00:13:12] of any given partner?

[00:13:13] So like a lot of firms now

[00:13:15] have been able to do this cool thing

[00:13:16] with their technology where

[00:13:17] each partner has a dashboard of their stuff, right?

[00:13:21] Their utilization,

[00:13:22] how many cases they have going on,

[00:13:24] what they've sold this year.

[00:13:26] And there is a decision that every firm confronts

[00:13:28] which is, do I make this technology sortable?

[00:13:32] Can I sort myself

[00:13:34] to sort of stack rank myself against my peers

[00:13:37] in terms of my business development output?

[00:13:39] And I think the answer is like every time

[00:13:41] in consulting, it depends.

[00:13:43] I think some firms probably need

[00:13:46] a little competitive pick in the butt.

[00:13:48] And the ability to search and see where you are

[00:13:51] at the force rank is one of the most impactful things.

[00:13:54] We all know that most of these partners

[00:13:56] make very good salaries, very good compensation.

[00:14:00] And so moving the needle

[00:14:01] with a little bit of incremental increase in comp

[00:14:04] is not always the most effective motivating factor.

[00:14:07] But if you can search where you are against your peers

[00:14:10] and you're in the bottom third,

[00:14:12] you start to take action.

[00:14:13] And we have seen firms will make it available,

[00:14:17] people will look at their rank

[00:14:19] and the bottom third instantly start taking on

[00:14:21] more business development activity.

[00:14:23] Like you can get a predictable future

[00:14:25] that they will do that.

[00:14:26] But it also creates problems.

[00:14:29] It creates people angry.

[00:14:30] It creates credit issues where you go,

[00:14:32] Scott didn't really actually sell that.

[00:14:34] He needed fear.

[00:14:35] I took that guy out to lunch that one time.

[00:14:38] And so my boss Tom, who used to live in Africa

[00:14:40] for a long time calls this the antelope down

[00:14:42] on the Serengeti.

[00:14:43] There's a new deal and everybody flies out of their office

[00:14:46] and says, I know him, I took her to lunch.

[00:14:49] I went to prep school with her

[00:14:51] and you start to fight over credit

[00:14:53] instead of pushing the firm forward and growing.

[00:14:56] And so it's a balance, but sometimes it can be impactful

[00:14:59] and sometimes it can disrupt the culture.

[00:15:01] Yeah.

[00:15:02] Wow.

[00:15:02] This is just definitely mind blowing what you're saying,

[00:15:05] Jacob, because these are things that I've seen a lot.

[00:15:08] And this also, I think when it comes to some of these issues,

[00:15:12] this is that first thread off the sweater

[00:15:15] that starts being pulled.

[00:15:16] And if there's no trust in the organization,

[00:15:19] it's like you're not gonna have a sweater left

[00:15:21] because everybody's gonna leave.

[00:15:23] And then you're gonna get critical mass.

[00:15:25] I don't wanna be the last one here.

[00:15:27] I don't wanna be read.

[00:15:28] I don't wanna have my name in the press release

[00:15:29] of me, one of 30 partners left at XYZ firm.

[00:15:32] That's why I think this is interesting,

[00:15:34] special services, especially big law firms,

[00:15:36] very interesting three-dimensional chess type organizations

[00:15:40] where one thing, it's the butterfly effect

[00:15:42] through the whole organization.

[00:15:44] If you tweak this here, wow,

[00:15:46] you might have three people leave a year later.

[00:15:48] And so how do you think leaders can mitigate the risk

[00:15:53] of unintended negative consequences

[00:15:56] when making these kind of changes in their organization?

[00:15:59] Yeah.

[00:15:59] So I would just say proceed cautiously.

[00:16:02] So there's always a conversation

[00:16:03] when you're hiring people like,

[00:16:04] what is it hire slow, fire fast,

[00:16:06] fire fast, hire slow, whatever it is.

[00:16:08] And I think the same is true with this.

[00:16:10] And I do think you can test some of this stuff out

[00:16:12] on a unit by unit level.

[00:16:14] Like you can roll this out to a practice group

[00:16:16] and see how they tolerate it

[00:16:18] before you roll it out to other people.

[00:16:20] So I think testing some of that,

[00:16:22] but I would say like my tendency is to lean harder

[00:16:25] on our culture than on competitive output.

[00:16:29] Like the culture matters and really good cultures

[00:16:31] who are collegial, like working with each other,

[00:16:34] they develop business together.

[00:16:36] And I would just say that is probably more important

[00:16:39] than juicing the performance

[00:16:41] at the bottom third of your team.

[00:16:42] But again, it can be very useful in certain contexts.

[00:16:47] That's interesting.

[00:16:48] Let me ask you about this.

[00:16:49] And I appreciate what you just said

[00:16:51] in terms of training,

[00:16:53] training partners to know how to make introductions,

[00:16:57] how to look for opportunities.

[00:16:59] I'll give you my own perspective on this.

[00:17:01] One of the things I've done,

[00:17:02] the recent change I made was changing my model

[00:17:04] to where I'm working on a retainer basis

[00:17:05] with the small number of firms.

[00:17:06] And part of that includes me training their partners

[00:17:09] on how to interview their firm,

[00:17:11] which really means how do you sell the opportunities

[00:17:13] to the people you want to hire?

[00:17:14] That's what an interview really is.

[00:17:16] And I'm good at being able to manage this nuance

[00:17:21] and earning their trust and talking to them in a way

[00:17:23] of doing it, but this is how I've explained it

[00:17:24] to some of the director level staff

[00:17:27] is that a partner's correct client facing persona is,

[00:17:32] I have all the answers.

[00:17:34] I know what to do.

[00:17:35] I know it all, I can solve your problem.

[00:17:37] That is the correct client facing persona.

[00:17:39] The problem is that persona permeates itself

[00:17:41] into other areas of that professional

[00:17:44] and other professional areas of his or her life.

[00:17:47] So let me ask you this, when you're teaching people

[00:17:49] how to do this, and by the way,

[00:17:51] have you seen that also?

[00:17:52] And how does someone like you manage that

[00:17:55] when you go into an organization

[00:17:56] and you're teaching them and training them?

[00:17:58] How do you share?

[00:17:59] How do you sell work?

[00:18:00] Things like that.

[00:18:01] Yeah, so it's a hurdle.

[00:18:03] And I think one of the things I often do

[00:18:05] is I just be, I'm just very frank about the content.

[00:18:10] I'm like, there is business development content out there

[00:18:13] and I have written a fair bit of it.

[00:18:15] It's not gonna blow your hair back.

[00:18:17] It's all the stuff you already know.

[00:18:19] And what we're working on today in this training

[00:18:21] is not learning content or you listening to me

[00:18:24] go through slides.

[00:18:25] We're trying to turn the dial 20%

[00:18:27] on our business development performance.

[00:18:29] And the way we're gonna do that today is through role play,

[00:18:32] exercises to help you get used

[00:18:34] to introducing your colleagues and other activities,

[00:18:37] including your suggestions for how the firm

[00:18:39] can support your crew a little better

[00:18:41] on business development.

[00:18:43] But the best outcomes, this Walt Schill character,

[00:18:45] the guy I'm writing the second book with,

[00:18:47] he's like 90% of our training should be role play.

[00:18:51] He's like nobody likes it.

[00:18:52] And so we have another role that we do,

[00:18:54] which is I do the first one.

[00:18:55] So I stand up in front of the room

[00:18:57] and I humiliate myself, introducing a colleague

[00:19:00] or trying to like sell illegal matter or whatever.

[00:19:03] And once I am up there and I laugh at myself,

[00:19:06] a lot of times the firm takes their guard down

[00:19:08] and they're willing to participate in a training

[00:19:10] that is not about me presenting how you're supposed

[00:19:13] to do it but then actually engaging

[00:19:15] in the activities to drive business.

[00:19:16] So you're getting partners and big fancy firms to do this?

[00:19:20] Yes.

[00:19:21] That's great.

[00:19:22] One of the things we do that I love

[00:19:23] is we have this game that we used to play

[00:19:25] in our firm as like an ice breaker

[00:19:27] called justified or poor form.

[00:19:29] And so a lot of times I'll start a training

[00:19:31] with justified or poor form

[00:19:32] and you'll put silly things on there,

[00:19:34] like taking your shoes off on an airplane

[00:19:36] and they'll both justify their poor form,

[00:19:38] like that's gross or that's not gross.

[00:19:39] Another one we do is like leaving the butter

[00:19:41] on the counter, you know,

[00:19:43] counter versus fridge, justified or poor form.

[00:19:45] And then I always have the last one be justified

[00:19:48] or poor form asking world-class clients,

[00:19:50] asking world-class lawyers to do a role play.

[00:19:53] That's great.

[00:19:54] Without fail they say justified.

[00:19:56] That's great.

[00:19:56] Wow, that's great.

[00:19:58] I mean, I like that the gravitas

[00:19:59] with self-deprecating humor and light professional humor,

[00:20:02] I think that's a good combination

[00:20:04] to get people like that on board

[00:20:06] and they give you the answer,

[00:20:08] that's justified, we should do that.

[00:20:09] Oh, well thanks for the idea.

[00:20:11] Let's talk about what we're doing now.

[00:20:13] Exactly.

[00:20:13] Since you brought that up.

[00:20:15] Exactly.

[00:20:16] So tell me a story

[00:20:18] and you don't need to mention the name of the firm.

[00:20:20] What were the problems that they had

[00:20:21] before you started working with them?

[00:20:23] What did you do in terms of addressing

[00:20:26] these institutional barriers,

[00:20:28] affecting the paradigm shift and instituting,

[00:20:32] well I don't know if you call it instituting training,

[00:20:33] but doing training.

[00:20:35] And what was the outcome?

[00:20:36] What's kind of the arc?

[00:20:37] What did they result in?

[00:20:39] What were their results?

[00:20:40] Yeah, so I think the place where we have

[00:20:41] the biggest impact and we do a bunch of these

[00:20:44] different kinds is in new partner trainings.

[00:20:47] So I think the first thing that you,

[00:20:49] like the first bridge to cross is your job has changed.

[00:20:52] They didn't teach you this in law school

[00:20:54] and now you're a salesperson.

[00:20:55] I wrote a book called Never Say So,

[00:20:58] but you're a salesperson.

[00:20:59] Your job is to build a pyramid underneath you

[00:21:02] of productive profitable work for the firm.

[00:21:04] And I think the most important thing that we do actually

[00:21:07] is we interview every person who participates in advance.

[00:21:10] So we know their proclivities,

[00:21:12] their concern areas,

[00:21:13] where they're really strong.

[00:21:15] And so I try to borrow credibility

[00:21:17] of the people in the room to say,

[00:21:20] you know, and this last one I did,

[00:21:21] there was a great person in there who was very,

[00:21:23] you know, sort of business development focused.

[00:21:25] And instead of saying, hey, you're a salesperson now,

[00:21:27] I called on him and I said, hey,

[00:21:28] you shared something in an interview about the importance

[00:21:30] of this class of people driving the growth

[00:21:32] of the firm in the future.

[00:21:33] Maybe you could share that.

[00:21:34] And so I'm borrowing his credibility

[00:21:36] to get my message in.

[00:21:38] And so we did a bunch of exercises,

[00:21:40] a bunch of workshops,

[00:21:41] and then we sent them off for six months to do it.

[00:21:45] And most importantly is you have to have accountability

[00:21:47] after the training.

[00:21:49] And so we did an hour long,

[00:21:51] we always do this,

[00:21:52] but I'm thinking of one in particular,

[00:21:53] we did an hour long session with those partners

[00:21:56] after their six months.

[00:21:57] And we were just honest with each other.

[00:21:59] What worked?

[00:22:00] Tell me a story about a pitch you lost.

[00:22:02] We had people telling stories

[00:22:04] about trying cold outreach,

[00:22:05] all kinds of stories coming out.

[00:22:07] And so what I find so interesting is oftentimes

[00:22:11] it's not the development of a hard skill.

[00:22:13] It's more like getting comfortable with doing it

[00:22:16] and giving each other the right

[00:22:17] to not be 100% successful.

[00:22:20] Partners in both law firms have been 100% successful

[00:22:23] at every single thing they've done since second grade.

[00:22:26] Like they get the best grades,

[00:22:27] they go to the best schools

[00:22:29] and to sort of wade into some water

[00:22:30] where they're very uncomfortable,

[00:22:32] you kind of have to, I think,

[00:22:33] give them the right to not be perfect at it first.

[00:22:36] I think that's great.

[00:22:37] I think that's a really good style.

[00:22:39] And obviously you know what you're doing,

[00:22:41] that's terrific.

[00:22:42] So tell me how has this helped organizations?

[00:22:44] What were some of the results

[00:22:45] that you've seen from organizations

[00:22:47] like this that you've developed?

[00:22:48] Did they increase their revenue

[00:22:50] or what were some of the metrics

[00:22:52] that you looked at along the way?

[00:22:54] Yes, always look at revenue increase.

[00:22:55] But I think more importantly,

[00:22:56] what I'm trying to look at is I like to look at,

[00:22:59] and we saw a good result with this most recent one is,

[00:23:02] I like to look at the number of deals being proposed

[00:23:06] in that six months with multiple partners attached to it.

[00:23:10] Because when you first start doing business development,

[00:23:12] when you become a partner,

[00:23:12] you are only comfortable trying to grow out there

[00:23:14] and win the work that you know.

[00:23:16] And if we're successful,

[00:23:18] our new cohort of people are working together

[00:23:20] as well as with their other colleagues in the firm

[00:23:24] who are not in the new partner class to do that.

[00:23:27] One more addition I would add for training

[00:23:29] is just that getting the perspective of people

[00:23:32] who do it incredibly well is important.

[00:23:34] And so I did a separate training

[00:23:35] and the one I'm talking about where we did,

[00:23:38] again, this is a great word,

[00:23:39] a Rainmaker panel with three different senior partners.

[00:23:43] And we just talked about how do you get referrals?

[00:23:46] How do you use references?

[00:23:48] How do you reach out to someone

[00:23:49] and ask for a piece of business?

[00:23:51] I think we're the three ones.

[00:23:52] But learning from the people who came before them

[00:23:55] and who do it well is the ideal outcome.

[00:23:57] And so we're trying to, you know,

[00:23:59] utilize a bunch of different techniques

[00:24:01] to engender that activity.

[00:24:03] Yeah, wow.

[00:24:04] That's fantastic, Jacob.

[00:24:06] Well, before we go here,

[00:24:07] I want to ask you what I've done

[00:24:09] with every guest three action steps.

[00:24:12] If there's a leader of a law firm

[00:24:14] or professional services firm,

[00:24:15] whether it's large or small,

[00:24:16] they've got a team of people

[00:24:17] and their business depends on them sharing work,

[00:24:20] them being highly functional in that.

[00:24:23] If there were three action steps

[00:24:25] they can take to get started

[00:24:26] with these ideas that you've shared,

[00:24:28] what would those three action steps be?

[00:24:30] Yeah, so I think one would be

[00:24:31] an evaluation of your current incentive system.

[00:24:34] And you have to ask yourself,

[00:24:35] do I have an incentive or do I have a bonus?

[00:24:38] So if you walk around and you ask your various partners,

[00:24:40] hey, what are we trying to incentivize you to do this year?

[00:24:44] And their response like it often is,

[00:24:45] is I don't really know how that works.

[00:24:47] I sort of just try to be successful with my matters,

[00:24:50] bring in some work and help my colleagues.

[00:24:52] And if I do that well, it usually works out.

[00:24:54] Well, that's a bonus and that's okay.

[00:24:56] But an incentive is something completely different.

[00:24:58] An incentive drives specific behavior.

[00:25:00] So ask yourself,

[00:25:01] do I want to have a bonus

[00:25:03] where I'm just rewarding really good performance

[00:25:04] or am I trying to incentivize something very specific

[00:25:07] and incentives don't have to be the same across the board?

[00:25:10] You can incentivize one practice unit

[00:25:11] to be better at cross-selling

[00:25:13] and one other one to make more connections.

[00:25:15] It's okay to have different incentives,

[00:25:17] but have a clear strategy on what you're trying to do

[00:25:20] as a firm in order to create that incentive.

[00:25:23] That could be a whole topic.

[00:25:25] We'll have you back on, kind of go deep in that.

[00:25:27] So tell me about number two, Jacob.

[00:25:29] So I think number two would be,

[00:25:30] and this is a little bit more advice for an individual,

[00:25:33] but the way that firms become outstanding

[00:25:35] at winning work with existing clients

[00:25:37] is not more complex than curiosity.

[00:25:40] I want to understand every single thing

[00:25:43] that's going on in your business,

[00:25:45] not just whether or not there is like

[00:25:47] an Arisa litigation opportunity for me,

[00:25:50] but I want to understand your business

[00:25:51] because on some level you're serving that client,

[00:25:54] but you're also serving that individual.

[00:25:57] And you're helping that individual be successful

[00:25:59] in their job and in order to do that

[00:26:01] you have to understand how their priorities fit

[00:26:03] into the larger ecosystem and strategy of that business.

[00:26:06] And really good consulting partners understand that

[00:26:10] and how their value fits into that person's roadmap.

[00:26:13] That's great, good, good.

[00:26:14] And what's number three, Jacob?

[00:26:15] Help your colleagues.

[00:26:17] If you're senior, mentor, younger partners

[00:26:19] and help them learn business development,

[00:26:22] make introductions, reach out to them

[00:26:24] and ask them about their practice.

[00:26:26] This stuff is sort of like rolling a log down a hill.

[00:26:29] It can be hard to get started,

[00:26:30] but once you build the cultural fabric of curiosity,

[00:26:34] wondering what people are up to,

[00:26:36] trying to bring other partners in, it's huge.

[00:26:39] I always ask when I do these trainings,

[00:26:41] I say presumably you have an all firm meeting coming up,

[00:26:43] where you're all gonna be in a place together.

[00:26:45] And presumably you do the same thing

[00:26:47] that so many attorneys do,

[00:26:48] which is you spend your time

[00:26:49] with the five people you know from your office.

[00:26:52] And I would challenge all of you at each meal

[00:26:54] to sit at a table where you don't know anybody

[00:26:57] and ask them what they do in their practice.

[00:26:59] And that will actually have a big impact

[00:27:02] on business development in the future,

[00:27:03] much larger than you think.

[00:27:04] So help your colleagues and be curious

[00:27:06] about how they sort of add value for their clients too.

[00:27:10] These are great ideas, Jake.

[00:27:11] And one thing I've seen is that this isn't,

[00:27:13] I mean, these are simple ideas.

[00:27:15] They're important, they're not overarching impossible goals.

[00:27:20] It's something that you just have to do.

[00:27:22] But then again, we're dealing with people

[00:27:23] and that's the hard part, right?

[00:27:25] That's right.

[00:27:26] And so, and that's where your company's expertise

[00:27:28] comes in taking these fuzzy ideas into results

[00:27:31] and bridging that gap.

[00:27:32] So tell us about your company, about your offerings.

[00:27:35] What would you like our listeners to know

[00:27:36] about what your company does, Jake?

[00:27:39] Yeah, so we spun out of Anderson

[00:27:40] just right before the Enron debacle.

[00:27:42] So we've been in...

[00:27:43] And it was the profitable ideas exchange, is that right?

[00:27:45] That's right, profitable ideas exchange.

[00:27:47] And many of our clients just referred to us as PI.

[00:27:49] PI got it.

[00:27:50] But we basically want to be helpful

[00:27:52] to the entire spectrum of growth.

[00:27:55] So all the way from thinking about structure,

[00:27:59] incentive, training, even going as far as sort of

[00:28:02] segmentation and who we should be serving.

[00:28:04] And all the way through the value chain

[00:28:06] of business development, whether that's...

[00:28:07] So one thing that I find to be one of my favorite projects

[00:28:10] is like an event audit.

[00:28:12] So I think one of the things we do as firms

[00:28:14] is we go to an event every year

[00:28:15] because we're supposed to go to it.

[00:28:17] And we show up and we have a nice time

[00:28:19] and maybe we're not as focused as we should be on outcomes.

[00:28:22] And so one of the ways we've helped clients

[00:28:23] is to go in and to do an audit of

[00:28:25] what is the actual ROI of these different events

[00:28:28] that you're spending money on?

[00:28:30] And not to say these are good or these are bad,

[00:28:32] but to go one of two ways.

[00:28:33] One is we're not going to this event anymore.

[00:28:35] It doesn't attract the right people.

[00:28:37] We're gonna take that investment

[00:28:38] and we're gonna deploy it somewhere else.

[00:28:39] Or two, this is a good event

[00:28:41] but we're just not getting our ROI out of it.

[00:28:43] And here is the plan, the playbook

[00:28:45] for getting meetings in advance, meeting senior people

[00:28:48] and not just wandering around the conference hall

[00:28:50] grabbing stress balls.

[00:28:51] Because there's really no big opportunities

[00:28:53] on that conference hall, right?

[00:28:54] Like the opportunities happen at dinners and breakfast

[00:28:57] outside of the conference.

[00:28:59] Wow, that's great.

[00:29:00] And how do you report back to the leaders

[00:29:04] of your clients on that?

[00:29:05] Yeah, and I think there's an interview process

[00:29:07] that goes along with it, right?

[00:29:08] Which is why do you wanna go to this?

[00:29:09] How are you utilizing this?

[00:29:10] Who's attending?

[00:29:11] How much does it cost?

[00:29:12] All of those kinds of things

[00:29:14] because there are some events where

[00:29:16] there is just such a dominant event

[00:29:18] in a particular industry where you can rightfully say

[00:29:20] we're not getting any sort of business development

[00:29:23] ROI out of there.

[00:29:23] But we have to be there.

[00:29:25] It's just we have to be at that event.

[00:29:27] And that's okay too, but there are many events

[00:29:29] we invest in that we definitely don't need to be going to.

[00:29:31] Yeah, I get that.

[00:29:32] Well, that's great.

[00:29:33] Well, this is good.

[00:29:33] I'm really glad you're on the show today, Jacob.

[00:29:35] I wanna have you back on later on.

[00:29:37] I'm gonna put your book link information

[00:29:41] on the show notes.

[00:29:42] Everybody that's listening

[00:29:43] if you wanna connect with Jacob,

[00:29:44] just go to the show notes

[00:29:46] wherever you listen to this podcast

[00:29:48] and you'll be able to connect with him directly.

[00:29:50] Thanks again, Jacob.

[00:29:51] Good job.

[00:29:51] And I look forward to having you back

[00:29:52] on the show in the future.

[00:29:54] Thank you, Scott.

[00:29:54] Appreciate it.

[00:29:58] Thank you for listening to the Rain Making Podcast.

[00:30:01] For more information about our recruiting services

[00:30:04] for international law firms,

[00:30:06] visit our website at attorneyssearchgroup.com

[00:30:10] To inquire about having Scott speak

[00:30:12] at your next convention,

[00:30:14] conference, sales meeting or executive retreat,

[00:30:17] visit therainmakingpodcast.com.