The longer you’ve been following my articles, the more you’ll know that I like to make business development simple. One of my favourite phrases is ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid’. I think it’s a beautiful way to live and work. When I was a junior lawyer, it was drummed into me that I had to show clients how smart I was by throwing lots of legal jargon at them. It’s funny because that wasn’t how my career started. My first head of department taught me the importance of explaining everything to clients in a way that made sense to them, not us. But as my career went on, it seemed that dazzling clients with jargon was how we justified our fees.
Looking back, it was a terrible way to work with clients – and even worse for developing strong relationships.
The same applies to business development, and I hope I have lived this philosophy in how I teach lawyers today.
All that said, in order to keep my newsletters interesting and valuable, I have to think of ways of helping you go on a learning journey. This means sometimes going deeper – which they should, that’s how you grow.
However, just as we should with clients, it’s really important to check in and go back to basics. If you don’t stick to the basics and do the simple things, anything that might be a bit more complex or detailed is simply going to fail. While failure isn’t final, learning the lessons from them makes the difference between growth and development or making the same mistakes over and over again.
So for this newsletter, we’re going to remind ourselves about the most simple business development activity that you can do: putting a set amount of time into your diary that is non-negotiable.
This goes back to what I write about in a lot of my newsletters: consistency.
Without consistency, you won’t get consistent results and you won’t get consistent growth. Without consistency, your BD activities will be hit-and-miss and you won’t be able to properly track where you are doing things well and where you are going wrong. Without consistency, opportunities you might have won might not come through because you weren’t there at the right time or didn’t follow up when the client was in a position to go ahead.
So BD starts by making it a part of your work – a non-negotiable part.
The only reason that you wouldn’t do it is if there is some kind of emergency. If you’re putting something as simple as 30 minutes into your diary, it’s very rare that an emergency comes up that cannot be put to one side for 30 minutes to do business development. This has to become a non-negotiable to get the consistency you need and results you want.
It is the ultimate first step from where everything else can go.
So, if you don’t already have set times in your day or week for business development, make this your priority. You don’t have to go big with two hours every day. Habits we stick to are those that are easy, so even 30 minutes once a week is a great start, and it’s the start of a habit that you can ingrain into your work and build from.
From there, all things are possible, but having a non-negotiable period of time in your calendar every single week is what makes the biggest difference in business development.
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And if you aren’t sure what step 2 looks like or what to do with that set time in your calendar, then The BD Breakthrough Blueprint™️digital education course is what you’ve been looking for. With all the tools you’ll need for your journey to becoming a rainmaker and 21st century trusted advisor, The BD Breakthrough Blueprint™️keeps things simple and helps you make the most of the time you’ve set aside.
For more information and to get your copy, go to www.legalbalanceinstitute.com now.
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