TRP 251: The Power of Follow Up for Rainmakers with Jason Levin

[00:00:10] You're listening to The Rainmaking Podcast, hosted by high-stakes headhunter, author, and professional speaker, Scott Love. You're listening to The Rainmaking Podcast, and my name is Scott Love. Thank you for joining me on the show today. Our guest today is the author of the book, Relationships to Infinity, The Art and Science of Keeping in Touch, and his name is Jason Levin.

[00:00:36] Jason is a professional business development coach that works with professionals showing them how to build their network and get business. Now, his book is both a social science-based and practical guide to helping you get better at keeping in touch. Our conversation today is focused on the power of follow-up for rainmakers. This is one that you don't want to miss. As always, this show is sponsored by Leopard Solutions Legal Intelligence Suite of Products, Firmscape, and Leopard BI.

[00:01:05] Push ahead of the pack with The Power of Leopard. And also, check out the show notes so you can connect with Jason directly. We've put the link where you can order his book, Relationships to Infinity, in the show notes. It's a book I've read. I'd highly recommend it. It's one that you should read also. Now, here's my conversation with my good friend, Jason, and I hope you get some great ideas teaching you how to follow up to build your practice. Thanks for listening.

[00:01:32] Hey, this is Scott Love with The Rainmaking Podcast. And our special guest today is Jason Levin, and our topic today is the power of follow-up for rainmakers. Jason, thanks for joining me again on the show today. Scott, thanks so much. It's wonderful to be back on The Rainmaking Podcast. Be back again. A multi-multi guest. Thank you for being here. I feel loved. I feel love. I've got love. Awesome. Well, let's get right into it. The power of follow-up.

[00:02:01] Let me ask you, let me just get right to the pitfalls, because you work closely with law firm partners, and you see what they do and what they don't do with follow-up. Tell me about, let's start with some pitfalls. What are the biggest pitfalls or mistakes that partners make in regards to follow-up? I think the first begins with mindset. And like in anything, I think it's really hard for law firm partners to have a mindset that this is going to take longer than they want.

[00:02:29] And so having this short-term mindset, oh, I wrote this article. Okay, I'm done. Or, oh, I met them at this conference. Okay, that's enough. And so this short-term mindset, I think, is holding a lot of partners back in how they think about their approaches and how they interact with in-house counsel or whoever could be in a position to hire them for either their own legal services, their practice, or their firm.

[00:02:58] Right. I mean, you would think that, gosh, I wrote that white paper, I pushed it out on LinkedIn, and how come my phone's not ringing off the hook? Right. Do you think people kind of, that's what their mindset is? They do something once, one little thing, and they should get results? What do you think?

[00:03:13] I'm thinking that, you know, from a mindset perspective, it's hard sometimes when you're very smart, you know how to tackle these complex legal and business types of arrangements and opportunities, whether it be transactional, regulatory, or. Yeah. And. They're big deals.

[00:03:35] Yeah. But not enough time is spent on saying, well, how does my general counsel perceive what the problem is? Not enough time to ask the question on how either the general counsel or the people that influence the general counsel, how they're perceiving that problem.

[00:04:01] And so, given the fact that there's this short-term mindset that I'm seeing that exists, it's almost as if there's like, okay, we had this conversation, or okay, I just did this one thing. And when that happens, you know, I just did this one thing. And when that happens, you see a lot of partners that get frustrated, where's the work?

[00:04:23] Do you think that maybe they perceive the skills of being a rainmaker, client developer, as being trite, pedestrian beneath them? Do you think they might kind of see it that way? Well, I went to a good school, I'm super smart, and my children are beautiful. I shouldn't have to do this. You know, what I think is, you know, the fact that you've made partner at a law firm is already a massive achievement.

[00:04:47] It is, in and of itself, an endurance event, where you've gone to a top undergrad school, a great law school. You've made it all the way through to that moment where, you know, whether you're non-equity or equity partner or whatever that looks like.

[00:05:02] And I think that too often, the partners don't think about it from the other person's perspective on how long it will take for someone to actually engage them or the practice group of their firm for legal services. There's a lot of complexity there. And so it might be obvious to the partner, but not so obvious to the people that could be in a position to hire them. Let's go into their mind then, because you brought that up.

[00:05:32] Oh, and I like that, and I want to come back to that. So thank you for bringing that up again. Yeah. Let's talk about who that is. In-house counsel, C-suite executive of a company. Sure. Someone that has big problems that need to have, they need to have solutions for them. What's going on in their mind about who they're going to give legal work to? And how can a partner really kind of join them at that intersection? You know, it's one of those things where better questions lead to better answers.

[00:05:59] And so asking the general counsel or asking these executives those types of questions is in and of itself a really good use of time. What's going on in their minds? I've been a coach now with the Association of Corporate Counsel and speak at their annual meetings for the past five years. I'm also a trainer within executive search firms. So in hearing the different points of view within the C-suite, sometimes it is the general counsel making that call.

[00:06:28] But sometimes they're working in partnership with the CFO or the CHRO or the CEO or the board. Really, when you look at all the literature, two things always come up. They understand my business, number one. They understand my business. And number two, they understand me.

[00:06:46] And I don't think that partners pause enough in entering into a world where, yes, they're solving complex legal and business problems. But who are the different perspectives that is it the general counsel that's going to make the call on this or is it some other types of stakeholders that need to get buy in?

[00:07:11] And how can the partner understand who are those stakeholders that are coming in to make this decision? So that's the perspective of a lot of the purchasers of legal services. And you see this time and time again in client feedback interviews, a lot of the different articles that are coming out within the business of law. They understand me. They understand my business. That's great. So how do we tie follow-up with that?

[00:07:41] So I think that even if you were to take the understand me category, if you meet someone for the first time, it's like, you know, hello, general counsel. You know, how are you hiring me? We are ignoring how a lot of in-house counsel think.

[00:08:02] And time and time again, you know, other through, you know, the Legal Marketing Association or Bloom Bloom Law or any of these industry associations, they always have a panel where general counsel are talking about how did the law firm partner develop a relationship? And what they all say in different ways is they asked me questions about myself. They asked me about my own journey.

[00:08:30] They also were authentic in just getting to understand me and didn't feel the need to sell me anything on the first time they met them. That's great. And I found, too, that people make a judgment about you based on the quality of questions that you ask. And I like the fact that you gave us some examples of that, asking about them, about their origination story, you know, whatever it is.

[00:08:55] It's, you know, what's amazing is the commonality that we all have on looking at somebody else's LinkedIn profile. I was working with a cohort of partners. Partner was about to go into a particular pitch, saw on the person that was going to be in the room, their background on their LinkedIn profile. Saw their undergrad was in classics.

[00:09:22] And they were a classics undergrad. And so they talked about Greek gods and goddesses. And so, you know, something so esoteric. But again, understand me, they took the time to say, you know what, this is something that we have in common. And now here are some of the ways that we can work together. Yeah, that's great. So you can't ignore the, what do we have in common?

[00:09:50] What do we share as part of this relationship? So what do you think, kind of give me a menu list of items that a partner should be doing to stay top of mind with those decision makers. And then how can they schedule some follow-up that can get them more engagement? What are some of the top best practices you've seen that partners do to get that kind of visibility, so to speak?

[00:10:16] So, to your point, it is, as an attorney by marriage, I know that words matter, right? Words matter. So you just use a really important word, decision maker. Somebody that's actually going to decide. And inside of a law firm, they're often either called clients, it's called origination. And so it's this amorphous world of all these different things where all of a sudden law firm X is hired by company Y or person Y.

[00:10:46] What you're describing is decision makers. So step one is, does the partner have a list of decision makers that they are reading a playbook off of? And that's one. Secondarily, who are the people, either within their own platform or externally, that refer them to those decision makers? It's a dashboard.

[00:11:12] And we need to be reminded, Scott, time and time again, people buy from people. Yeah, absolutely right. And so give me examples. Who are these referrers? So a source of referral, and this is one of the main reasons why so many law firms are working on their cross-selling projects,

[00:11:34] is that all the marketing literature says it is easier to buy from a current client than acquire a new one. I'm a former consumer marketer from Unilever. I am a student of consumer behavior. And so that's a reason why you have 20 different types of Cheerios or 15 different types of Dove. Every single variant is, oh, okay, well, you know, if we've had a transactional matter, they probably need labor employment.

[00:12:04] They might need environmental. They might need... So if you think about it from a grocery store perspective, what's in your own law firm in terms of who's the feeders and who can you be talking to internally as a source of referral? And that's an enormous opportunity. They call it the internal network. They call it cross-selling.

[00:12:29] But reminding even your own peer partners that you're still there is often a wonderful use of time and gets ignored. Tell me about that. What do you think partners can do related to staying connected with their own internal network? What are some things that you've seen have really helped work within their own firm?

[00:12:49] I think that if a partner is traveling to a particular city where they have their own office, they should go say hello to the partners in that office. I'm coming into town for this particular conference. Can I drop by and say hello? The simple act of looking at your own firm's website on what's going on. You know, we often talk about the power of LinkedIn.

[00:13:17] Can you just go on and look at your own firm's LinkedIn feed to see which partners are winning awards or writing articles? Yeah. And recognizing the people you're already working with and saying, I see you. Congratulations. That's good for you. We're not pausing enough to see all the great things that their peers are doing.

[00:13:45] And if you look at law firm compensation models, so many of them actually celebrate collaboration, sharing the pie. And so when we think about decision makers, sometimes the decision maker and the referrer is actually under your own label. Yeah, that's great. And that makes it super easy. They're on the same team. They're wearing the same jersey. It's easier to get introductions that way. Yeah. You know, same jersey, same team.

[00:14:12] You already have two or three practice groups doing different types of work. The opportunity is actually within. You know, I think if you created a game for partners and you called it, let's say, the 30-point system. And every day they have to achieve 30 points within 30 minutes of business development activities. And you were to give each action item a point value.

[00:14:40] Connecting with an internal colleague is worth 10 points. Connecting with the cold prospect is worth one point. Writing a LinkedIn article, that's worth five points. But getting people in your network that are potential referrers to reshare that article, that's worth 15 points each, right? See where I'm going? Yeah. So if you can clarify it. Yeah. So you can read that. And then 25 points would be the article that was just written.

[00:15:10] And then sharing it specifically with your own clients, your top five clients. Look, I just had a peer of mine write this. I thought of you. And what's the knee-jerk reaction? Because of all the different demands that a law firm partner has, oh, let me just put it out as part of an alert.

[00:15:38] When we get back to purchasers and decision makers of legal services want to be seen. They understand me. So that 25 point, what are my top five clients? Yeah. Will they care about this? And just a quick forward thought of you. That's great, Jason. Ladies and gentlemen, you have seen Jason and Scott create our next business development tool for lawyers right here on the Rainmaking Podcast. Exactly.

[00:16:04] We have the NCAA Final Four, and that will be the 11-11. The 11-11 team. That's it. So I think that's great, Jason. How do you think a partner should have a tickler system or reminder about important follow-up items? What are some tactical ways you've seen that work to help these busy peoples keep that follow-up as a part of what they do? Yeah. And, you know, you and I have talked about this in different ways.

[00:16:33] For me, follow-up is more than gold. It's platinum. Follow-up is in the platinum because two things are happening. You're going to forget, and the other person's going to forget. Can we at least start as a baseline that as human beings, we don't remember everything? Yeah. Your general counsel is a human being. Your CEO is a human being. Your CFO is a human being. Everybody's a human being. And guess what? They all have all these competing priorities. So you might have had a wonderful conversation.

[00:17:02] You probably sent a follow-up in the next 24 hours on what was discussed. Can you not, at the very least, again, back to mindset, giving the grace that either you forget or they forget. Then from there, then that assumes that how can you do something that works for you? I think that too often law firm partners try to come up with a convoluted system that doesn't work for them.

[00:17:31] And so the first piece is, okay, if you're going to come up with some type of follow-up system, personalize it so it works for you. How do you think about your own reminders? How do you get this into your calendar? What will you do? And these are the questions that law firm partners can be using. Okay, the law firm has some type of internal CRM, and a lot of them are quite good.

[00:18:00] How are you going to use that that works for you? Some law firm partners say, you know what? I still want to use a pen. Okay, how are you going to do that? So the system in and of itself could be deciding to decide that you need a system. Yeah. So tell me about somebody you've worked with. You don't have to mention their name, of course, but when they really got serious about business development, what was the big inflection point for them?

[00:18:26] And what sort of tools and systems did they use to be able to know when to follow up with people? You know, I had a law firm partner that we spent about a year and a half together, almost two years. One was deciding to decide on who that decision maker was. So step one was they were all over the place, you know. And so they were going to eight different types of conferences, eight, with all different types of stakeholders.

[00:18:53] And so the first thing we actually did was review, okay, let's look at your highest originations. Let's look at the biggest value that you provide. And we went from eight different types of decision makers down to two. So essentially too many people trying to go after that were not in a position to either hire or refer him. And then we got him into a tracker and he loved it.

[00:19:20] He loved it because what he was doing was starting to identify, okay, who are the key people inside of my law firm that I need to be on top of? And he, you know, both Letterman fans and growing up with the top 10 list. And so we created a top 10 of internal partners that could be referring him work. Then we identified as an accounting major in an MBA. I'm a huge fan of following money.

[00:19:47] Let's follow the money because when we follow the money and we look at the market, then we can look at organizations that can be in a position to actually decide. And so isolating for not only the types of organizations, but the people inside. And we started to identify those people.

[00:20:09] And so he got into a really great system of once a week picking a lane either within, okay, here are the types of people inside of my law firm once or twice a day, identifying people and seeing if that either they can meet for coffee, do a virtual or Zoom or identifying when their practice group was meeting. And so that he could get up there and do some type of internal awareness of what he was doing. Yeah. And then he essentially was rotating it.

[00:20:39] So systematically between the tracker that he had and his calendar invites, and that's what worked for him. And so that he was getting closer and closer and closer to decision makers, and then also the sources of referral. And so he was getting into more pitch conversations. He was actually starting to include other partners on conference panels on how they've solved complex matters.

[00:21:05] And so in the 18 months we were together, I think his originations doubled just because of this more structured approach. And he's happy, right? Because he was solving the problems he wanted to solve. The clients were happy because they were getting specialized work. And because he had a better understanding of what was going on in his own law firm,

[00:21:31] he could have a more expansive conversation with the different folks that he was out in the marketplace. And so he was then starting to feed work to some of his partners. And originations were happening where he wasn't even, you know, he was the relationship partner, but other folks were doing work, which was joy. Great. That's leverage right there. Yeah, it's leverage. That's what we want. That's the whole point. Yeah. Yeah. That's great, Jason.

[00:22:01] So as we bring this to conclusion, if you could give us three action steps people can take to really start implementing these ideas about follow-up, what would those three action steps be? Yeah. And I mean, this is something I talk about in my book. This is something I talk about in my book all the time. When we think about follow-up, here's your one, two, three. One, make your file. Make your file. And however you want it. If it's pretty to you, then it's pretty. So make your file.

[00:22:29] Secondarily, have it readily accessible. Assuming that you have a time block where the file is easily clickable or you have a series of things so that when you go into that time, it's like you say to yourself, all right, I'm going to have my file open. I'm going to have LinkedIn or the internal law firm CRM. So when you're in that time, deciding to decide even what you're doing in that time. And let me ask you right there before we go to step three, but what's a time block and how long should that be?

[00:22:59] And how regularly should somebody make that? So here's the cool thing, Scott. Time block can be as short as six minutes, as short as 12 minutes. Too often, law firm partners like, I need an hour to do X and it has to be all these different kinds of things. You're not getting into the micro habit. But and when you think of micro habits, that's really the opportunity for every law firm partner, because you're blocking an hour. No law firm partner is going to have an hour to do all these different kinds of things. Right.

[00:23:30] So if you're sparsing six, 12, 18 or even half hour time blocks throughout the day, you're doing little things with consistency. And as we all know, when we're looking to build relationships, it's not measured in days or weeks or months. It's sometimes even years. And so you constantly are doing these micro habits that are founded in positive, authentic, market oriented types of things.

[00:24:00] Then all of a sudden that comes back. So, yes, everybody has the time. I don't want to hear it. Everybody has the time. Six minutes. You can do a ton of things in six minutes. That's great. And what's step number three, Jason? So in that six minutes on a daily basis, the social science proves this. Share a professional memory. Share gratitude.

[00:24:24] Thank one person for either a referral, for a successful case that ended, for a classmate from law school that taught you something. A daily share of a memory builds connection. The social science proved it when I wrote it in my book. All the social science that's coming out following the publishing of my book, not only does sharing memories and sharing specific ideas of, you know, I still thought of you.

[00:24:54] You did this for me. I appreciate that. Not only does that create connection in business development, it does something even more important. Makes you feel better. Makes them feel better. It's actually the dual joy of connection and wellness.

[00:25:13] And dare I say, yes, law firm partners can actually develop better relationships just by reminding themselves of the people that have helped them along the way, both in their careers and in their business development. This is fantastic, Jason. There's a lot of upside in many ways with what you mentioned. And I want to thank you for being here. But before we go, I want to make a plug for your book, Relationships to Infinity. I've read it at least once. It's really good. I'm probably due to read it again. But tell us about your offerings. What do you do?

[00:25:43] What do you have that you'd like our guests to know about? And for everybody listening, we're going to put all of Jason's contact info as well as the book link where you can order his book in the show notes. So thanks so much, Scott. So I have an integrated coaching program that takes content and group and individual for lateral partners, newly minted partners that allow for really building a practice over the course of 12 months.

[00:26:11] Secondarily, I'm brought into law firms for partner retreats, newly minted partner events, as well as practice group events related to how do you do all of these things? And what I think law firms really appreciate about me is I get practical and tactical immediately.

[00:26:31] So I get called in to really help these audiences get closer to the things that they want to do in a group setting and get them working on those kinds of things. And I think that's what law firms, law firm partners appreciate about me is that we get right into things and they leave immediately with a whole set of tactics and strategies they can use. That's great, Jason. Jason, thank you so much for being on the show.

[00:27:00] I'd love to have you on as a guest again in the future. And thank you again for sharing your wisdom and insight with us today. Thank you, Scott. Pleasure to be here. Thank you for listening to the Rainmaking Podcast. For more information about our recruiting services for international law firms, visit our website at attorneysearchgroup.com.

[00:27:23] To inquire about having Scott speak at your next convention, conference, sales meeting or executive retreat, visit therainmakingpodcast.com.