TRP 349: The Transactional Partner’s BD Advantage: How Corporate, Finance & Real Estate Lawyers Win More Business with Ryan Grelecki
The Rainmaking PodcastOctober 13, 202600:31:13

TRP 349: The Transactional Partner’s BD Advantage: How Corporate, Finance & Real Estate Lawyers Win More Business with Ryan Grelecki

Every two weeks, the business development tactics top lawyers use are free at therainmakingmagazine.com

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Corporate, finance, and real estate partners have a business development advantage most of them never fully leverage. Ryan Grelecki is here to change that.

Ryan Grelecki is a global consultant and master GrowBIG® facilitator at Bunnell Idea Group — one of the most respected BD consulting firms in the legal industry. In this episode, he joins Scott Love for a webinar built specifically for transactional lawyers: deal lawyers, corporate partners, finance and real estate attorneys who are ready to turn their built-in advantages into a real business development system.

What you’ll learn:

  • Why transactional lawyers have 4 structural BD advantages that litigators simply don’t have
  • The mere exposure effect: why frequency of contact is one of the most powerful forces in relationship-building
  • Who to target in every deal — not just clients, but strategic partners who become referral engines
  • The “protomoi” framework: how to identify the 5–10 relationships most critical to your practice growth
  • Why a face-to-face ask is 34x more effective than email — and how to use that inside every deal
  • White space analysis: how to mine your existing clients for work you’re not getting yet
  • What “earned dogmatism” is — and why becoming an expert can actually close you off to growth
  • The give-to-get investment: how to design a low-risk, high-value experience that earns the right to ask for work
  • The 4 C’s of conference attendance: Clarity, Connect, Converse, Commit — and why 75% of the work happens before you arrive
  • How to build BD habits that survive busy seasons — the MIT framework and the no-zero-days system
  • 3 action steps for transactional partners ready to build a real pipeline

Visit: https://therainmakingpodcast.com/

YouTube: https://youtu.be/MIsxplvDHuU

---------------------------------------- If you are a successful law firm partner or law firm founder and want to hear about other options, please book a time on Scott Love's calendar here: https://attorneysearchgroup.com/schedule Or email Scott to connect with him at: scott@attorneysearchgroup.com


📅 Monthly webinars for transactional partners: RainmakingSeminars.com ----------------------------------------

This podcast is sponsored by SurePoint Legal Insights (formerly known as Leopard Solutions)–turning legal intelligence into opportunity.

For a free demo, visit this link: https://surepoint.com/legal-insights/ ----------------------------------------

About Ryan Grelecki:
Ryan C. Grelecki, J.D., is a global consultant and master GrowBIG® facilitator & coach at Bunnell Idea Group, where he helps professionals in the legal, consulting, insurance, and other industries build the skills to grow client relationships and win new business. He specializes in designing relationship-focused, give-first BD curricula and 1:1 executive coaching experiences that turn technical experts into confident rainmakers.


Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryangrelecki/

https://bunnellideagroup.com/

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[00:00:10] You're listening to The Rainmaking Podcast, hosted by legal dealmaker, author, and professional speaker, Scott Love.

[00:00:25] You're listening to The Rainmaking Podcast, and my name is Scott Love. Thanks for joining me on the show. This is part of our Sometimes Tuesday's legal-specific series where we talk about issues related to just those in the legal profession. And our guest today is Ryan Grelecki.

[00:00:42] Now, the conversation you're about to hear was our very first of our live events where each month I interview business development coaches and authors where we have events just for transactional partners. It's a live Q&A, and you'll be able to hear some of the questions at the end. Let me tell you about Ryan. He's a global consultant and master facilitator at GrowBig, the Bundle Idea Group, where he helps professionals in the legal consulting, insurance, and other industries build the skills to grow client relationships and win new

[00:01:12] businesses. He specializes in designing relationship-focused, give-first business development curricula, and one-on-one executive coaching experiences. Those turn technical experts into confident rainmakers. I promise you, you're going to get some innovative ideas from my interview with Ryan today. Make sure you connect with him. All of his information is on the show notes. And let me tell you a few more announcements here.

[00:01:38] As you know, this podcast is sponsored by SurePoint Legal Insights, turning legal intelligence into opportunity. The show is also sponsored by The Rainmaking Magazine, with over 40 authors and contributors sharing the best ideas in client development absolutely free.

[00:01:54] The rainmakingmagazine.com. Also, if you're interested in this series just for transactional partners of law firms, if you're a corporate finance real estate partner, Ryan was our very first that we did. We host these every month, usually the third week of the month, half an hour. It's live. Your information is held in confidence. Just go to this link and you'll be able to get on that list. It's rainmakerseminars.com. I hope you get some great ideas for my conversation with Ryan today. Thanks so much for listening to the show.

[00:02:23] Welcome, everybody. My name is Scott Love. I am the founder of the Attorney Search Group. We do partner-level recruiting and law firm mergers, also the host and producer of The Rainmaking Podcast and The Rainmaking Magazine, a editor-in-chief. And one of the things I like to talk about is business development. And I've decided I'm going to start these niched series of webinars to those people in the transactional space, deal lawyers, corporate finance, real estate partners, people like that.

[00:02:50] And the first in our series of this is Paul Marchegiani. Paul Marchegiani is a global business development consultant with the Bunnell Idea Group, which is one of the preeminent, if not the preeminent, business development consulting firm to those in the legal industry. And Ryan, you and I didn't meet. I co-presented with Deborah Ferron at the LMA Northeast Chapter in New York City in October.

[00:03:11] And I saw this guy passing books around that Mo Bunnell wrote. And then I saw you. I'm like, oh, you're that guy. So welcome and thank you for being here on our webinar today, Ryan. No, I have a beer, Scott. I appreciate the invite. Really excited about what we're going to talk about today. Absolutely right. And this is interesting because this is niched to those people that aren't litigators. They're not regulatory lawyers. They're people that see everything. When they come into an organization, especially corporate partners, they see where all those other opportunities are.

[00:03:40] So let me ask you this. From your perspective, you're a global business development consultant to attorneys. Why do corporate finance and real estate partners, why do you think they have an advantage when it comes to business development? Let's start with that question. Yeah, I love that question. I think high level, if you think about the nature of the work that they're doing, it's inherently positive. But when you look at a transaction, the parties are going in the same direction. But when you think about a litigation, inherently they're going in the opposite direction.

[00:04:10] And so there's already a bit of a mindset around what a transactional lawyer does versus what my litigator does that maybe leaves me a little more open to having conversations about opportunities and other ways that we can work together. So I think at the high level, again, there's sort of this positivity or at least advantageous part of what we're doing. I'm going to get something, right? We're asset for asset, which I think is really powerful.

[00:04:33] The other thing, though, that I see a lot of our transactional clients, transactional attorney clients have that's different from litigators is the frequency of touch points. So if you think about how you engage and what ways you engage with your litigation counsel, it's probably not something that you want to have frequently. But with my deal counsel or real estate counsel or finance counsel, whatever it may be, those touch points are going to be more often, more consistent throughout a calendar, throughout a month.

[00:05:03] And so I think just having that frequency of contact is really powerful. We talk a lot about the research around the mere exposure effect. The more I'm around someone, the more I experience someone's talents and abilities, the more I start to like that. So it's really powerful from a psychological perspective. I also think, though, in those practices, those transactional practices, multiple relationships exist within a deal, right? Not just a client, but you have opposing counsel, clients on the other side.

[00:05:29] You have bankers, accountants, brokers, wealth advisors, whoever it may be that are involved. And again, moving in the same direction, different from the sorts of interactions or the battlefield, if you will, that the litigators might be on. And then lastly, what I might consider is I think the work itself is a credibility builder. When the other folks in the room or that are part of the deal or on the Zoom, whatever it may be, they're observing you doing your work.

[00:05:56] That is establishing you and how you do what you do and potentially creating or opening up other opportunities for new and different work. That's fantastic. We could go deep. I'm sorry we only have a half hour for everybody today. But one thing, there are two things that you mentioned that I totally agree and I want to hit on. One of them is when I first, because I've been recruiting since 1995, before the Internet, before LinkedIn. And when I got into legal, I started recruiting litigators and I was thinking, this is really interesting. White-collar partners.

[00:06:24] I did a lot of work with Chad Bonin Park, with Abby Lowell, the preeminent white-collar partner. And whenever I'd recruit white-collar partners, I'd ask them, what's your book? Well, it's about three million. Where does it come from? And they kind of shrug. I don't know. It's different. Because if they have a repeat client, it's really bad. And so I know that with corporate finance real estate partners, it might be that same cadre of 10 relationships that keep giving them work over and over.

[00:06:48] And the other thing you mentioned that I believe in, and I know this is also congruent with the ideas that Mo Bunnell talks about, relationships grow deeper with more frequent contact. And I like the fact that even the depth and the breadth of those relationships is interesting. So how do you think corporate finance real estate partners, how can they leverage this difference to their advantage? Yeah, I think two words really important. Be proactive. Got to be proactive with this. Move off of the mindset.

[00:07:17] They see me. If they need me, they'll call me. When you have this exposure advantage, when you have this frequency of contact advantage, when you also have more likely these opportunities to be with people face-to-face, live and in person, I want to be proactive and take advantage of that. I would say in any deal that I'm in, I want to be asking myself, who's in the room? Who's in the room who isn't my client?

[00:07:43] And with that, it's not just, okay, who could be my client, but who could be a strategic partner for me? Who within this transaction or this environment here could be a source directly or indirectly of new and additional work for me? And not just, okay, have this list and it's some rolling around in my head. Write it down. Who are the five to ten most important relationships that I need to be consistently investing in, in order to build or deepen over time? Wow.

[00:08:11] I also think that because you have that regular contact, that you don't need to do this sort of like, I'm going to reach out cold later. Within those interactions, within the deal itself, I can be reaching out. There's actually really powerful research that we cited came out right before COVID hit out of Cornell. And what they were looking at was the relative efficacy of a request or an ask made via email versus live and in person, face-to-face.

[00:08:37] Most people would guess that, of course, the face-to-face in-person ask was more effective. What they didn't guess was the multiple of which it was more effective. Turns out that a face-to-face in-person ask is 34 times, not percent, times. Right? That's two yeses out of 100 on email versus 68 out of 100 when in-person or face-to-face.

[00:09:02] So I have this superpower when I have these frequent in-person face-to-face, even Zoom interactions that I want to leverage. To ask for that next meeting, ask for that step, ask for that opportunity to get together and discuss other ways that you can be helpful. And I think another way is, again, we'll pull up high level, referring to the mindset. That when I walk into a deal, I'm working on a deal, it's not just I need to close this.

[00:09:27] I need to be thinking that I'm planting seeds with each individual here and planting seeds of potential opportunity about how they might want to refer me to someone else or they might actually want to bring me in, hire me to help them with their next transaction. What are examples, going back to what you said, who are the five to ten people? And how did you articulate that again? Who are the five to ten people that can really give you the most exposure? Or how did you say that again, Ryan? Yeah, I would say the five to ten people that are most important to, and I mean, I've said it exactly like this, but this is how we would define it.

[00:09:56] We use this term called protomoi. And I know that's a Greek word. It means first among equals. But again, just to get in my mind that, hey, everybody can be important, but there are those who just rise to the top. So I see the people that are most critical to my business development success, to my growth and practice over the next year. Yeah. So give me an example. You don't have to mention who you coached, of course. But tell me about an attorney that you worked with in the transactional space. Who was that person? Like, was it an investment bank that was a good referral source?

[00:10:26] Was it a PE company where they were actually on the sell side, but they got to earn the right to do acquisition work, which means now they're on a lot more deals. Give me some examples like that. All of those. I think those are great examples. From a strategic partner perspective, someone who's not necessarily going to hire me to do a deal for them, but would be bringing the other work for their clients, the bankers.

[00:10:48] Bankers are exceptional sources from a strategic partner perspective where I see a lot of my clients go into a deal, meet a banker on perhaps the other side, and then create, develop, deepen a relationship, make sure they're investing in them. And what does that mean? I want to have frequent value added touch points. So I'm not waiting for them to reach out to me. I'm proactively reaching out to them with helpful insights, offering to maybe have 15 minutes to discuss trends that we're seeing, whatever that may be, to make sure that they know that I'm valuable, I'm helpful.

[00:11:18] You should want your clients to interact with me. I've also seen and just was on a coaching call last week where the attorney had sourced brand new work from someone who was represented in the deal. They were sort of co-counsel or they were co-parties. And the client just loved how she handled herself and reached out after the deal and said, hey, we'd love to get together and talk.

[00:11:45] And hopefully next time we've got a matter, we want to bring it to you. And so it's just taking advantage of those opportunities. And now the coaching with that is, okay, we don't just let that slide. We don't just wait until that person does have something and does call. I want to be proactive in deepening that relationship, sharing some insights, giving them an experience of what it would be like to work with them. That's fantastic, Ryan. And by the way, for anybody listening, if you've got questions you want to ask Ryan, go ahead and put that in the Q&A section.

[00:12:14] And everybody's name should be kept in confidence, of course, here. So I'm just going to read your question. I won't mention your name. But one thing I'm going to put in the chat box right now is Ryan's LinkedIn profile there. And I'll put it in before we depart. So if people have joined us halfway through, they'll be able to have that as well. And I'm going to put also Ryan's firm's name, the Bunnell Idea Group. And here's some context, everybody, with our show, the Rainmaking Podcast.

[00:12:41] We've interviewed probably about 325 episodes plus. About a third of those are legal specific experts. And I would say Mo Bunnel's organization is in the top 1% of that just because of the quality, the depth, the reputation, the thought, even just the spirit, the positivity. So if you're interested in looking at getting a coach, Ryan would be a good choice. I'm putting all of his info there. And so if you're interested, you can just reach out to Ryan directly. And if you have questions, go ahead and type them in the chat box.

[00:13:10] But I think I appreciate those anecdotes, Ryan. I think one thing I'll share with you from the perspective of somebody that's read business plans, not to coach people, but to move people to a firm that might be more optimal. Those business plans that have the most specificity in them, I think, are the best. Like, this is my number one client. These are the people. And I'll even tell them, go to the firm's website that you're going to join. Look through who are the practice groups, who are the practice group leaders. I see this person and this person could be a good alliance.

[00:13:38] You know, so they really put thought into that. And then another sad fact, not a fun fact, a sad fact is that I'd say most of the people that are thinking about moving have never really done a business plan before. What do you think about that, Ryan, in terms of the concept of drafting a business plan? How important is that for transactional part? I think it's absolutely critical. And I would say drafting anything business development related is critical because I got to get it out of my head and I got to get it on paper.

[00:14:06] If you think about how you would manage an engagement, manage a project, manage a deal, you wouldn't do that in your head. And the research would tell us that we're not capable of managing complex projects just in our head. We need to get those things down on paper. And when you start to even, again, not write it out necessarily, but type it all out, you start to see what's real. Where are the gaps? You know, how realistic is my pipeline, right? People that are, hey, someday I'll send you something. That's not a pipeline, right?

[00:14:35] That's wishful thinking. And so if I am keeping track of who are the people, what are my touch points, what have I been sharing, what are they saying? I have real data that informs who belongs in a business plan too. And at what level is that work likely to grow or what level is that work likely to go with me?

[00:14:56] And so we're big believers that you've got to get this stuff down on paper because I'm not as good as I think I am at managing relationships, plans, complex projects in my head. Yeah, that's right. And plus the partners have all this other important stuff in their head. Sure. Client matters, things like that, working on the deal, working on the close, things like that. It's a lot. So I think putting on paper, absolutely. Well, and many of them are also responsible for running a firm. You're running a business. Right.

[00:15:25] Business owners, there's a lot going on besides just doing the work and trying to bring in the work. You've got to keep the lights on. Absolutely right. Absolutely right. And so what are some other strategies and tactics you can share that work well with transactional partners in terms of being proactive? Are there any other ideas that you have in that regard, Brian? Yeah. Yeah. A couple of things or maybe three things I'll share. First, really simply, I should be regularly conducting white space analysis or like mining what I already have.

[00:15:54] My existing clients, what else do they need? How else can we be helpful where we're not helping them yet? I want to make, I cannot assume that they know that I do everything and they're going to reach out. We all suffer from status quo bias and we're all going to be anchored on what we're currently doing. Those are headwinds that are coming against us from a client perspective. The other thing that we can also suffer from is what's called earned dogmatism. As people develop greater expertise in an area, they become more closed minded and they stop asking questions.

[00:16:23] We can actually become experts in our clients and experts in what we do for them to where we kind of close off and we're like, yeah, they know. We know if it'll grow as it's supposed to grow. It'll be organic. It may not. And so I need to be thinking again, proactively, where are the ways that we're not helping that we could be helping? How do we expand this client on our platform if we have a bigger one and start introducing those ways in which we can be helpful?

[00:16:49] The second thing, and I'll go back to what we talked about with sort of the diversity of interactions that I might have as a transactional or deal lawyer. I want to build a referral engine with those adjacent professionals. So those strategic partners, I should be systematizing how it is that I'm staying in touch with, staying top of mind with and investing in those relationships.

[00:17:10] Again, like we talked about, picking a number, whatever that number is, whatever is manageable and being really deliberate and consistent in investing in those relationships. Sometimes we forget that we should be sharing insights there. We should be offering to be helpful there. Before they ever offer us or ask for anything, we should be proactively offering helpfulness to my referral engine, my strategic partners. Yeah.

[00:17:35] And that's in alignment with the concepts that Mo Bunnell, your colleague, has written in the book, Over Your Left Shoulder, Give to Grow. That's right. It's like give to grow. Absolutely. To that point, I think specifically with clients, we recommend all the time as a proactive demand generation tool, which is, again, spelled out explicitly in Give to Grow and taught in our training, Grow Big, which is over my right shoulder, is the tool that we've dubbed a give to get. It's an offer of helpfulness rather than just pitching.

[00:18:05] So moving from, hey, let me know if you ever need someone that does what I do, to giving something concrete and small. What are examples of that? Yeah, that's really good. So if you think about our own buying experiences, I can read about a service. I can read about a product, but that's only going to do so much. And someone can tell me all about a product or a service.

[00:18:30] When I get an opportunity to experience it, when I get an opportunity to taste the thing, to drive the thing, to see how someone thinks, it's going to be a lot easier for me to buy into that. And so if you think about as a transactional attorney, I have so many different ways that I could offer really, really high value but low risk investments on my dime that require nothing on their part but give them experience of what I do.

[00:18:57] So I might offer up a 20-minute call to walk through how a deal structure trend is affecting their particular industry. Maybe I review a term sheet that they were handed from a lender or a landlord. Or maybe I prepare or I share a short market term summary that's relevant to a potential deal that they may be seeing.

[00:19:19] Things that are important enough, valuable enough to where they start to solve a problem, but I'm not giving away so much. I think what's really powerful or really important with a give-to-get offer and investment like this is that it's got to point to next steps. So we think of this as a really strategic tool where after I've had an opportunity to meet with a potential client, ask a lot of great questions, understand their needs and ways that we can be helpful.

[00:19:48] I have in mind what my big matter is. I know the work that I'm aiming for, but I'm not going to jump to that. I want to earn the right to be able to ask for that and almost get to a place where they're asking us to do that for us. So then I work backwards from the work I want to do to design this investment, this experience, again, that I'm offering on my dime that points directly to that. So I want to give them something that is an experience of what I do, but very clearly points to the fact that there's more to be done here and we're positioned well to do it. So let me ask you this.

[00:20:18] Let's say we've done that. And here is that action that points to this. How do we move it forward? What should we tell that client? What do you think? Are there any word tracks that you recommend? Because I don't want to be offensive. I don't want to wear my welcome out. What do you think a partner should do to kind of articulate that to that client to go to that next step? Yeah. Well, first I would say there's we recommend really specific language and even making the offer of that investment. Hey, would it be helpful if? Very different from, hey, we can if you want. We can if you want is you can burden me if you like.

[00:20:48] Would it be helpful if? Easy to say yes to, but it also sort of opens up a no. And really powerful research around this that when we give people an opportunity and an easy way to say no to the client, it actually increases the likelihood that they will say yes. And so I'm giving them a soft way also to say no. So would it be helpful if?

[00:21:06] And then I design that experience such that I'm going to save time at the end of again, if I'm going to have a 20 minute call walking through deal structure, then I'm going to save time at the end to ask for that next step. So how about if, you know, if you're seeing anything here that catches your attention, we could be happy to to review some documents of yours or be happy to take a look at some other information that maybe you've got, whatever it may be.

[00:21:35] I want to leave time to ask for that next step. Typically, in this process of a give to get, there's a small win in between the give to get and the big win. And that is there's got to be some sort of escalated commitment from the client that may be a smaller paid project. It may be just an investment of time. It may be an introduction to someone else up or across the organization. And so I'm going to set up that conversation within the give to get to ask for that advance of that next step. That's great. That's really good.

[00:22:05] And that's something that you've seen has worked well, right? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Because it's again, if you go back to the idea of I can talk about what it's like to work with me. But when you actually get to experience what it's like to work with me, it's a whole lot easier for you to say yes to that. It's also as we think about designing these, it's one of the only tools that we've ever seen that leans into all six drivers or levers of influence are identified by the research of Dr. Robert Cialdini.

[00:22:33] Getting into things like likability and scarcity and authority and social proof, commitment and consistency. Again, we don't have time to get into all of those. But I can trigger each of those such that it becomes psychologically easier for someone to say yes to what we're doing.

[00:23:17] That's right. What's your process in helping that partner reach his or her goals? Yeah. Well, we follow the same process that we that we coach on. And so one of the first things that we have to do is sit down and we ask a lot of questions. We want to dig into your practice. We want to understand your goals. We work in what's called a whole brain way. So we lean into a behavioral science methodology called the Herman Brain Dominance Instrument. And so I'm going to make sure that we understand, set and identify goals.

[00:23:47] And then we got to develop measures of success. Right. The analytics that help us understand how do we determine success towards those goals. Then we're going to build out a process. What are the steps that we're going to take to actually get to that goal? And then in that last bit, how do we celebrate this? How do we create energy around this? And so our process is what we call a whole brain approach to make sure we're hitting all four of those areas in order to build out.

[00:24:15] Again, really what we're getting to is what we talked about earlier. We're building out a business development plan that has strategy, measurement, process, and then, of course, connection, energy and celebration. That's fantastic. I know the big deficit most partners have, and I'm not saying anything that they haven't thought about before, is execution. Because they've got so much going on. They've got to serve that client. They've got that urgent matter. How do you help solve for that? Yeah. So we really lean into the building of business development habits.

[00:24:44] Habit behavior is incredibly powerful. When we're in habit mode, our brain gets to sort of relax. It doesn't require a whole lot of thinking. And so there are foundational behaviors that we want to get folks thinking about that are tied to opportunities. So places where we believe we can bring in new work and relationships. Two very important, really, pipelines for us.

[00:25:05] And I want to get to a place where what's habitual for me is setting weekly business development goals that are moving opportunities forward and deepening relationships in a really intentional way. If I can lock that in, I'm always doing something. We have folks that identify in that process what we call MITs are most important things and committing to at least three or just three, really. Just start with three. It doesn't mean I won't do more than three things, but there's three things I will not sacrifice.

[00:25:32] Because what we find is what's most powerful when you're really moving into a really focused attention to business development. Number one, you've got to have achievable, realistic goals, but you've got to lock in discipline. Where we see business development sort of flounder, if you will, in professional services is when the behavior is either sporadic. It's just like, hey, whenever I can, I do or sprint like. So, OK, this week's going to be a little slow for me from a delivery perspective or billable perspective.

[00:26:00] So, I'll do a bunch of BD and then I disappear for six months because I get really busy again. I need to lock in systems. So, what we're doing is helping folks lock in those systems and make sure every week I'm doing something so I can be as close as possible to no zero days. That's great. I really like that process, Ryan. I think that's good. It's thoughtful. I think it's highly effective. Let me ask you this questions we're getting from people. How do I know which conferences are best to attend? How would you answer that question? Yeah, I would.

[00:26:30] Where are my clients? Right. And it's not logos. That's really important. It's not where the logos are. It's where the decision makers are. So, I want to be where the people who decide whether or not I get hired are going to be. So, we have to be really careful. We identify a conference simply because it's the right industry, right subject matter. And maybe we see that the right entity is going to be there. But do you have the right decision makers in the room? Is the right level of professional going to be there?

[00:27:00] That's absolutely where I would start. And then I think it becomes really all about, you know, what's my willingness to invest the time to prepare appropriately? We have an entire module that's dedicated to event attendance. And 75% of preparation for event attendance is done before. And I think so many people look at event attendance and it's, okay, what am I doing there? If I'm not doing the work on the front end, I'm not willing to do the work on the front end for that conference, probably not something that I should be attending. Can you talk a little bit more about front end work?

[00:27:30] Like, here's the conference I'm going to. I've got the attendee list. I know where it's going to be. What would be some preliminary work people can do prior to going to conferences? So we talk about the four C's of event attendance. The first is clarity. I need to understand who from that attendee list, and if you've got one, that's a fortunate value add, who on that attendee list do I definitively have to connect with? I'm not going to connect with everybody.

[00:27:55] So I need to identify who are the people, almost going back to that protomoy concept, that I absolutely want to connect with and what's realistic. Maybe that's five, ten, maybe it's three. So clarity on who I plan to connect with. And then the second C is connect. But I want to connect before I go. I want to reach out before we actually go to the event to create the expectation that we're going to get together. And that's got to be a value add interaction. The third thing that I want to be thinking about is converse.

[00:28:23] Before I even show up, what am I going to talk about? What I don't want to do is run into that person like, oh, hey, how are you enjoying the conference? How's the weather? I want to have something very specific, something insightful I'm ready to talk about, or really great probing questions that I'm ready to ask. What is it I'm going to converse with? And then the fourth C, which is in that moment there, but incredibly powerful and I think most often missed, I want to commit to the next step before I leave. And you've probably seen this.

[00:28:53] We've all experienced it. We meet somebody at a conference. Hey, this is great. I'll follow up with an email. You know what your email inbox looks like after a conference. Theirs looks like that too. Go back to that 34X research coming out of Cornell. When you're face-to-face in person, pull out that device. Hey, would it be helpful to go ahead and get a 15-minute call to talk more about what we just discussed in two weeks? Let's go do that right now. Just do it right there. Just do it right there. Yeah. Can you say no? That's okay. Yeah.

[00:29:21] But I would like to make that request, try to take advantage of that, again, that superpower that I have when I'm face-to-face and in person. What I think you're offering people are ideas that give them outsized returns. If you look at in the world of private equity, I know I've got people on here that do those types of deals. Private equity is always looking for outsized returns in what they do, which makes sense. And I think partners and law firms should have that same perspective.

[00:29:44] How can I do what I – and one thing I always do is I'm going to spend one unit of my time and see if I can get 100 units back, such as producing content, going to conferences. I look at – so I'm in the lion hunting business, so I'm going to the gazelle conferences. I'm not going to legal conferences. I'm going to conferences that corporate M&A private equity. So I went to DealMax in Las Vegas, 3,000 people there. Then when I was there, these are all the business cards I collected. Everybody got a handwritten note.

[00:30:13] And so just doing things that keep yourself memorable. So I think what you're talking about, Ryan, those are outsized returns. You've got limited time. Spend time strategically with the business plan. Hire a coach like Ryan and you'll be off to the races. And thank you so much for being here, Ryan. I'd love to have you back on our series again in a few months. Anytime. It's been a pleasure, Scott. Thank you for having me. You bet. Thank you.

[00:30:41] 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. To inquire about having Scott speak at your next convention, conference, sales meeting, or executive retreat, visit theraanmakingpodcast.com.


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