Ep#11 Mastering Business Development and Marketing

So welcome to today's episode. And today I'm going to be talking about business development. it is primarily aimed at lawyers, but it might be useful to other people in professional services or other industries who have to pitch and sell to clients. And I'm going to look at it from two perspectives.

First of all, the psychological and then Some of the more practical issues And as lawyers and indeed an awful lot of people in the workplace nowadays We pretty much all have to engage in business development It's taken as read that we're great lawyers, but that's absolutely no use if they're if we don't have any legal work to do And you'll find that if you think about selling nowadays as less It's hard selling, but more influencing and persuading.

You can see that throughout society, a lot of people are spending an awful lot of time focused on this. So you think doctors have to persuade patients to do things that are good for them and take their medicine. Lawyers have to persuade juries. Teachers have to persuade students to learn and pay attention.

We have to motivate employees, and even if you think about dating apps, you're trying to persuade people to engage with you and then take it one step further. and I think most of us sort of have a pretty good idea of what we should be doing in terms of business development, but at least for me personally, there's a real risk that it goes to the bottom of the pile.

I have lots of other things to do, busy lawyers, busy employees have millions of other things that they have to do on their to do list and often business development just sneaks to the bottom of the pile and we just don't engage. and I, I usually ask people like, what does it mean to them? And what's interesting is when you talk to people about what does it mean to them?

you don't often get words that are positive in nature. You know, sometimes you'll get people who think it's fun. Often people will say it's necessary, challenging, or important, but the most common words have some element of discomfort, like tough, difficult, hard, painful, or even distaste, around pushy, aggressive, and sometimes even deception.

So slimy, sleazy, dishonest, manipulative, fake. and I know if I think about my own experience, what does it mean to me? So I guess it means. I know I need to do it. There's something, there's some discomfort that immediately arises about having to reach out to people and try and get them to engage with my services.

I think, I don't want to, I don't want to irritate people. I know they're really busy, so I don't want to waste their time. I don't want to them to think I'm pushy or using them. and I guess there's a bit of me that doesn't want to get rejected. but it's interesting cause if I turn that on its head and think about it the other way around, how do I feel if someone contacts me and is looking to offer me a service or to work with me?

Actually, It certainly doesn't irritate me and in lots of ways, I'm pleased that they're thinking of me. So it's interesting how we can, we have this sort of negative sense that goes along with marketing sometimes. and maybe turning it on its head is one thing that could be useful for, for us to do.

And I know for me, one of the really transformative experiences of my life that really helped me a lot was, I worked for an organization or a company called Tie Rack when I was, at university in the holidays and Tie Rack had little booths, all over London, and they sold ties and sarongs and things.

And I worked at the airports and they were very, very aggressive in terms of sales. So we'd be looking at the sales figures and phoning them into head office every hour. Every day comparing against every week against every month, and we'd get given a very hard time if we weren't keeping, if we weren't matching our targets from the previous day, week, hour, and it just made me much braver about going up to people, talking to them, engaging them in conversation and then asking them what they were looking for and could.

could I help them? And what was interesting, it was the engaging them that was really important. So don't just go in with, are you looking for a tie? I mean, it was much easier at the airport because I could say, Hello, where are you flying to today? Start talking to them a bit, form a little bit of a relationship and then ask them about what they were looking for.

And that, that was really helpful. Helped me inordinately when I started work because I'd got used to getting over that fear of going up to someone and interacting with them and trying to, you know, To sell them something. So, let's look at the psychological element of this. if you've listened to any of my other podcasts or videos, you will have definitely heard this before.

human beings have two really fundamental needs. Once for connection, you know, babies. fare much better if they're held against flesh and then not to be rejected. And if you think about both of those things, incredibly important when we're young, we are the mammals who are helpless for the longest part of our lives compared to any other mammals.

So if we are rejected as babies and we're put outside the tribe and left to fend for ourselves, we will die. So it's an absolutely primal need not to be rejected that Stays with us for the rest of our, our lives. And obviously there's huge psychological risk involved in putting yourself out there and offering yourself to someone and then being rejected.

Plus often we have really high expectations when we go in and make that offer because we want something to fantastic to come out of it. So we have high expectations, which often are dashed. And then there's huge risk in terms of the way we feel about it. But obviously there are some really big upsides.

So then let's examine what might be going on. And again, you may have heard me talk about this before about the voice in your head. What are you saying to yourself? So pretty much every action that we take starts with a thought, except. Falling backwards and reacting to a loud noise. So if there's a really loud noise, you'll just react.

You won't have time to think about how you're going to react. You'll just react. It's also just incredibly powerful. And, and some, if I had longer with you, if you were with me in person, I'd probably get you to do an experiment where I'd get you to imagine holding a lemon, imagining how it feels, then taking a bite of it.

And then asking you what's happened and what you would notice is that you have more saliva in your mouth and nothing has happened. All that you've done is think through the experience of tasting a lemon. And we, we know lots of other things happen to us in terms of physical reactions. If we have some thoughts that we might blush, we might get chills with music.

We might sweat when we're anxious, our heartbeat will raise when we think certain things. So it's really important to think about the. Dialogue that we have. And what are we saying to ourselves? So what are we saying to ourselves about putting ourselves out there and doing some marketing?

and one of my phrases that really sums this all up, which comes from, a psychiatrist called Victor Frankl, who was a psychiatrist and he was in Auschwitz during the war. and he was really interested in how it was that some people were able to Survive emotionally reasonably intact, and other people were quite understandably destroyed by it.

So the phrase that really sums this all up is between stimulus and response. There is a choice about how we react and it's all about, it's not so much about the events that happen to us, it's about the story we tell ourselves about those events. I mean, we, we may well be telling ourselves quite a negative story about what could happen when we go out to market to clients.

So just have a little think about what it is you might be saying to yourself about going out and doing business development. You might be a lucky person who thinks it's fun and exciting, but are you thinking similar things to what I was like? Oh, I just don't want to bother people. They're going to think I'm pushy.

They're going to tell me to go away. So have a little think about that. What are you really thinking? What are you feeling? Scared? Anxious? And then let's have a think about, like, what's the worst that can happen? Because often, when we are anxious about something or fearful, we're actually fearful of something we haven't really examined in depth.

And often it's the emotional part of our brain, so the limbic center, that is warning us that there is danger. So it's there to protect us from danger, but it's saying. Watch out, watch out. Something bad might be about to happen. Think before you take a step forward. So then what we need to do is engage our, our more rational brain and think about, well, what is the worst that can happen?

It's not just a great big hole. It's not just a big black abyss that we'll fall into. So what's the worst that can happen? So obviously one of the things that could quite easily happen is that we get ignored. So, you know, that might happen. someone might actually say, Thanks for getting in touch, but please don't bother me again.

So that feels a bit horrible, but you know, it's not the end of the world. worse, worse, worse, it could happen. Perhaps a client could complain to the firm that you keep pestering them and tell people in the market that you're really, really pushy. So let's think about how likely is that? So that would be quite bad.

But it wouldn't be that bad. You know, none of your limbs would fall off. and it's how likely is it? So one of the things to do whenever you feel anxious about something that's going to happen, then think through, well, what is the worst that can happen? And then maybe have a think about what's the best that can happen.

So what are the really good things that could happen? So They might say, thank you. you might make a new connection. You might make a friend for life. You might immediately get loads and loads of work that keep you busy for the rest of your career. So the risk reward analysis is really worth examining, you know, discomfort versus a new contact.

And potentially some work for you and other people at your firm. And then one of the things you can start to do is try to reframe that internal dialogue. And again, I use this technique a lot often for things like public speaking. Reframe the way you're thinking about it. Change the story that you're telling yourself in your head.

So let's think about marketing. So what is good about marketing? So first of all, I'm offering people a service that they need. So they may be great for that. I'm also potentially giving them value, valuable information about the market. I'm giving them a chance to talk about themselves and you should make sure you do that.

You know, you can act as a sort of. Therapists to your clients, give them a chance to talk about themselves. Ask them how their firm is doing. How are they doing? they may find it's a great break from their day job. Obviously you have to be genuinely interested when you do this. Don't do it, as part of a list.

You need to be genuinely, genuinely interested in how are they doing. and it's always interesting to talk to other people in the market. And one of the things you're really trying to do is establish. A professional friendship for the longterm. It's not just about getting work. It's about creating networks for them as well as for you.

And then if you want some more altruistic shared benefits from doing the marketing, you can think, well, look, I'm helping my team. I'm helping my firm, you know, even I'm helping my family because if I go out and win work, I'll probably be more successful. I might get paid more. And also I'm being a great role model for other people.

So one of the things I often do is get people to complete something called a triggers chart. and you could have a go at this. So what you do is you write down the thing that you're examining. So going out and doing business development, emailing someone. contacting them. Then I want you to say, what do you feel?

So what emotions do you feel like anxiety, fear, nervousness? Then what are you saying to yourself in your head? And then what could you say instead? And that's what this reframing is. So you could have a go at writing it out, writing it out. We'll make it, embed more deeply into your psyche. And also you have the benefit of being able to have something written that you can have a look Whenever you want to embark on some business development.

And then really you just have to think about it as a numbers game. some of the best people that I've come across in terms of business development are people who I would describe as having no embarrassment genes, so they're just not worried about what people are going to think of them. And I listened, to a.

Um, influencer who started life as a sort of door to door salesman. And he was very interesting because he, what he said is he worked out that he would get a sale in about one in 100 times. So what he knew was that he just have to do 99, you know, knocking on doors, seeing if he could sell. And the closer he got to that 99, the closer he got to that one sale.

So somehow by thinking of it in that way, The more rejections I get, the more, the closer to success I'm going to be somehow makes it a bit less daunting.

And then, you know, just don't assume that your clients don't want to hear from you, that they're too busy to hear from you. I think that was probably my base assumption a lot of the time when I was working in a law firm. And I remember one of my clients at one point, I did ring him up because I had something I needed to talk to him about.

And he said to me, Oh, hello, I thought you died. and you could tell he was, you know, slightly offended that I hadn't bothered to talk to him,when I didn't have something to say just to catch up because we should be, you should be in a relationship with that person and therefore you should want to catch up with them on a regular basis, and just chat to them.

And one of the phrases that I really like to hold on to. When doing this sort of thing and potentially taking a risk is it is a personal decision that isn't personal. So it feels like it's personal and then it's a personal decision for the client, but it's not entirely personal about you. There are many, many other factors that will come into play in terms of that, that client's decision making.

So it's a personal decision. That isn't personal.

And then I'm just going to talk about some techniques that can be really useful, in terms of getting yourself to do and enjoy and be successful at marketing. So first thing is really, I mean, all of these are really based around resilience and getting you to do it and getting you to feel good about it and accept that rejection is just part of the process.

one of the things that you'll be familiar with is this idea of making positive.declaration. So like looking at yourself in the mirror in the morning saying, I'm an amazing, talented human being now that I would love you to do that. I do think there is, although it's a bit ridiculous and you can feel very silly when you're doing it.

There's something. It does have some sort of effect. It does have some sort of positive effect on you. So you could say, I'm going to win this client. I'm going to wow them with my pitch. I'm going to be amazing at doing the work for them. You could do something like that. But what recent, research has found is when you're trying to make behavioral change or get yourself to do something, something called interrogative self talk can be much more effective.

And I like to think of this as the sort of Bob, the builder approach. So instead of Saying, I can fix it, to yourself in the mirror. You're saying, can I fix it? Can I fix it? Can we fix it? And there's lots of research showing that when you ask a question, rather than making a declarative statement, that actually, you will be able More successful at achieving what you want to do.

So there's been research on people doing puzzles, who one group will say, we will solve them. And the other group will say, will we solve them? And the group that asked the question had 50 percent more success. So, so the affirmation feels good, but what the questioning does is make you think about, well, how are you going to do it?

Can we do this? Yes, we can. The next place your brain will go to is how, you know, what resources do we have? What strategy are we going to use to get there? So that's one benefit from this interrogative, self talk. And the other is that there's again, research been done, that what's great about it is it's intrinsically motivated.

So you're asking the question of yourself and then you're answering it. So you're making the decision that yes, you can do it. Yes, you want to do it. And this is how you're going to do it. What it isn't is external pressure on you telling you that you have to do it. So it's much more internally motivated.

externally, and that can also have a really positive effect on you actually achieving it. And then talking about positivity. So what you really want to do is try and bring positivity into your pitching. So positivity into your whole general demeanor and outlook. and, one of the experiments I liked that was done was,there was a company, a wedding planner that was, The cost had gone up from the original estimate, and so they decided to go to a test group to a test client and say, put the, put the negotiators into three groups.

One would talk about the issue in a positive way. One would be completely neutral and one would be quite defensive and aggressive about the fact that it was going to cost more. And, you know, that was, you know, that wasn't their problem. and what happened was the positively inflected pitch was twice as likely to have the deal accepted.

So just try and go in. With a positive outlook and a positive attitude, which will also help you increase your resilience going through this process. and there's, there's a, the, probably the leading researcher in this area, someone called Barbara Fredrickson. And when she talks about positivity, she'll talk a basket about a basket of emotions, around like amusement, appreciation, joy, interest, gratitude, and inspiration.

So can you bring all of those wonderful words Into your business development and negativity tends to narrow people's horizons and send them into a sort of fight or flight mode. Whereas the opposite will happen with positivity, when people will broaden out and become much more receptive and creative.

And one of the interesting things is in terms of the ratios of positivity to negativity in our life is that in order to flourish. People need a positivity ratio of about three to one. So you want to be thinking three times as many positive thoughts as you are to negative. I mean, you don't want to go too far.

Cause if you get up to over about 11 to one, then you start potentially to become a bit delusional. and that can sometimes, suffocate self improvement, you know, a little bit of negativity is useful because it will help you get feedback on your performance and propel you to improve. Just generally, three to one minimum, six to one would be fantastic.

Try and stay positive when you're going into this process. And then, and then again, just think about how are you describing this event to yourself. So this is similar to what I was saying earlier. The story in your head can also be described as your, explanatory style. And, one of the, well, I guess probably the father of positive psychology or one of the fathers is Martin Seligman.

He, coined this, This concept of learned helplessness. And that's all about how, when people are suffering difficult conditions, they will tell themselves a story about what's going on. and what he noticed was sometimes when you took those difficult conditions away, so you, if you had mice who were confined in a cage and you know, they were being given shocks when the door was open, so the conditions were lifted, they wouldn't leave the cage.

So even though conditions. improve, people still don't take action to make things better. And that's really about, if you're telling yourself a story about a negative event and telling yourself a story that it's going to last forever, it's universal, and it's all about you, then that is likely to result in this learned helplessness.

So for example, If you're, if you're, if you've had a difficult interaction with your boss, if you're saying to yourself, you know, my boss is always, always mean and all bosses are horrible. You know, I never, I don't want to work for any of them because they're all horrible and I'm incompetent. I'm incompetent all the time.

I have no skills instead of I was doing a perfectly fine job. You know, my boss is just having a bad day. You know, I can increase my skills. So it's all about Not looking at it as if it's permanent, pervasive, and personal.

And then the last thing I'd say is, you know, probably Rejection, you know, can you embrace rejection? So a bit like the door to door salesman of knowing he had to get through 99 calls. Can you really embrace rejection? Maybe even practice, there used to be a website, which I thought was fantastic for writers, where they could.

Send that email and they could ask for specific types of rejection letters to be sent to them so that they would get used to the pain of reading a rejection. And the more you get used to that sensation, the braver you'll get at potentially putting yourself forward to it. So you could even have a go at writing your own rejection letter and make it funny, but you want to embrace it and reduce the power of rejection.

Of the pain that it can give you, and, and one of the phrases that I like, which is sort of connected to rejection is, you know, inadequacies show you the path to progression. So don't be scared of failing. Don't be scared of being inadequate because these are things that will really help you to grow.

and then one thing I wanted to talk about is often people will say, Oh, well, I'm an introvert. I'm not an extrovert. So therefore I can't really do business development. and I just wanted to challenge that. Look, some, some people just love it. Some people really love interacting with people. As I say, they don't have an embarrassment gene.

They're not concerned about doing it, but for most of us, it is really difficult. And that is whether we are classically, I'd say in the sort of common parlance introverted don't like interacting so much with people, or we're extroverted and love talking to people on a big, loud, ebullient personality. In fact, those aren't the technical definitions of introvert and extrovert.

The technical definitions are all about whether you get your energy from being with people or whether it drains your energy. And, and I think. I, for example, I would describe myself as a socialized introvert. So I do really like being with people and I, and I like engaging and I will engage and I'll, I'll be happy with groups of people, but then I get incredibly tired and I have to go off and, and be on my own for a while.

whereas I say my husband is absolutely an extrovert through and through. He absolutely gains energy from being with groups of people and he'd probably be with lots of people, all the time if he could. and we naturally assume that these. Big personalities. These extroverts are going to be the best at sales, but there's absolutely no evidence to support this.

And in fact, there is some evidence that the Harvard business review had done some studies of sales professionals, and they found that the top performers tend to actually be less gregarious, than the below average. performers, and sometimes these extroverts or classically extroverted personalities can just be too assertive in their selling.

And often they just talk too much and listen to little, which then sort of dulls. Their understanding of other people's perspective. So I'll put a, there's a test that you can do,about whether you're an introvert or an extrovert. and I'll put it in the, in the link to the notes so you can have a go to see where you're sitting today.

The best thing is probably to be an ambivert, someone who can move between the two.

So then let's get a bit more practical and think about how do you actually do this in practice. So the first thing I guess is again, psychological to some degree, which is you've got to regard it as a really important part of your job. You've got to view it as a priority because if it's not a priority, you won't do it.

And it is always a priority. easier to slip into your comfort zone. If your comfort zone is drafting, getting things done, doing things that are operational and not getting out there and doing business development. So you have to regard it as a priority. And I would always recommend that you diarize time for business development.

And I would say do some little and often. So at least once a week, there needs to be a chunk in your diary, for business development. Tell your PA about it. You could, you could share the time with other people. I heard about one law firm recently who actually had a business development hour, a couple of hours where the whole office would commit to be doing business development at that time.

And some of them would go and sit in rooms together. So diarize it and then try and hold yourself accountable so that you actually do it. So those are the little often, chunks. And then what I would suggest you do is create larger. Expanses of time, you know, three or four times a year, take half a day and sit in front of a blank sheet of paper and start thinking laterally about what can you do that you're not already doing.

and I'll talk more about the information that you should have to hand that will help you. but I wanted to just talk about, a recent article in Harvard Business Review, which specifically examined different types of partner. In professional services, firms like law firms and looked at which type of partner was the most effective, in terms of success overall, and in terms of the amount of work that they brought in the amount of billings, that they build, and they split partners into five different areas.

And I'm not going to talk about the others, but they were, you know, experts, someone who people go to, cause they're an expert in the market and more opinionated. partner who they called debater, who expects the client to agree with them. Someone who's a realist, who sets expectations, not scared to say no, a confidant, so someone who people will go back to who, who's known for doing very good work, but the type of.

Partner that is the most successful is something they call an activator. And the, the characteristics of an activator are really that they proactively engage. So it's all proactive. So the confidant and the SME are much more likely to be reactive. They wait for the work to come to them. Whereas the activator will proactively engage and leverage all.

All platforms like LinkedIn and conferences and panels and events. They'll also introduce clients to other parts of the firm and collaborate. they will view business development as an essential part of their job and they will carve out and protect time for business development. They'll also balance the amount of time they spend with.

Existing clients to adding new clients. Whereas what most partners do is to spend most time with existing clients, but because the world's changing, it's not just about doing a good job. And then assuming that if you do a good job, those clients will come back. What's happening now is the marketplace is moving much more towards a world where there you have to be subject to some sort of procurement process or RFP, and there's less loyalty.

So you need to spend time growing new clients. As well as, maintaining existing clients and these activator partners spend around 37 percent more time on business development than any other type of partner. often planning things out in advance. So often they'll sit down on a Sunday and plan. What are they going to do in the week?

What business activity? Are they going to do, and then they'll make sure that they rigorously follow up. So whenever they have a meeting or a call, or they go to an event, they'll rigorously follow up, follow up and decide what it is they need to do. And then they'll check in regularly with their clients.

So have a think about that. Could you start adopting any of the characteristics of an activator partner? And then I'm going to get really practical because I think one of the most important things is that you write this down. there are some amazing client relationship management tools out there like Salesforce and some law firms now do have them.

But most law firms aren't using them the way things I call heavy sales organizations are using them, which is they will log every interaction with a client. So you can see across the firm who's been seeing who, but also they will use it to set reminders and nudges to make sure that you follow up and do the business activity that you have committed to doing.

And I haven't come across a law firm yet that is using, CRM systems in that way. So what I would say is. Write it down. Now I know most lawyers don't like Excel, but I'm going to say to you, it would be great, great, great. If you could have a go at using an Excel spreadsheet and I will put a sample in the notes to this podcast and in the second tab.

So at the bottom of an Excel sheet, there are tabs, which sometimes if you haven't used Excel, isn't obvious. There's a tab with some basic instructions. And what I would say is write down your current clients, write them all down, write down your target clients. And you'll see in my spreadsheet, it will have details of the client, the company they work for, the particular area they work for, whether they're a target client, whether they're a current client, what you want to do with them and when you want to do it.

So you need to set deadlines for yourself. and then what the Excel will allow you to do is pivot all these things. So if you decide you want to look all of the. All the clients from a company or all of the clients who work in a specific area, or in particular, if you want to sort your to do, so all your milestones by date, so you can see what's coming up next, what do I need to do, then it will be in there.

And it's incredibly useful. The other thing is that I find when I do do this, if I don't look at it for a couple of weeks, obviously I should be looking at every week, but if I don't. When I go back to it, I've often forgotten a lot of the things that I said I'd do. So having written it down is so useful because otherwise I'd have to be reinventing the wheel again and thinking, Oh, what am I going to do with these clients?

Who do I need to follow up with? What do I need to do? But it's there in writing as a trigger to remind me.

So keep that list with you and look at it regularly. And then what you've got to do is make sure you actually do the things that are on the list. and there's one tip that I think is quite useful, which is around when you do this. So I would suggest if you possibly can, anything that you've got that's difficult to do, do it first thing in the morning.

Sometimes I, if there's an email or something that I find a bit tricky, sometimes I'll literally wake up and get my laptop and do a draft in bed. Having a draft then makes doing the actual thing much easier. So I'll do it whilst I'm not thinking. I'm not going to send it out so it doesn't matter that much, but I'll just put something down.

And that's a placeholder for me to come back to. it is always better to do these difficult things first thing in the morning. And there's a concept called ego depletion. that may go some way to explaining this bit of controversy around. Ego depletion at the moment, a bit of debate in scientific circles, but let's go with it.

so ego depletion. So, so it's all about doing about how our motivation and willpower will get depleted as the day go on.

And there's a great experiment that was done, that first established this concept, which involved groups of participants, some of whom were asked to, go into a room and there would be plates of radishes and chocolate chip cookies, and they were told they had to, with lovely, warm, melting, chocolate chip cookies, and they were told that they couldn't eat the cookies, they could only eat the radishes.

And then the second group were told they could eat whatever they wanted. And they then took those participants into a room and gave them, a puzzle, actually a puzzle that was not solvable. and what they noticed was that the people who had had to resist the chocolate chip cookie would get frustrated and fed up much quicker.

So angry, and then give up way quicker than the group. Who are able to eat the chocolate chip cookies. And I don't know if you've experienced this, but I certainly find that my willpower will deplete as the day goes on. So, you know, my ability to eat chocolate definitely increases as we get later and later into the day.

And then see if you can get other people to hold you accountable. So do it together with other people, get your PA. If you have one to help, you can tell your family about what you've promised to do. you can set yourself targets. So you could say, I'm going to do two calls a week, two meetings, two coffees, two articles, like set yourself some targets.

and then sometimes linking it with another habit. So if you're not doing it very first thing, linking it with another habit. So straight after lunch, that can sometimes be helpful or some other habit that you do on a regular basis that you don't have to think about. Okay. When you come back, say right now, and I'm going to do some business development.

And remember, if you do it 21 times, it will get easier. it will turn into a habit, you know, that's what some of the research shows. So do it 21 times. Then it will become a habit and it will be much easier for you to do. And my advice is if you, if you set yourself a to do list, this is whether it's marketing or anything, have a rule that you're going to do the next thing on the list, because often we see the list and we're like, Oh, I don't want to do that.

And so we choose something easier further down the list. So that's more in our comfort zone. I would say, have a rule where you're going to do. The next thing on your list and then just be really realistic about how long it takes to, to get work to, for this marketing to become successful. As I say, you've got to manage your expectations.

My rule of thumb, and this has really Proved to be pretty similar in terms of marketing my coaching business, that it takes about 18 months to go from making an initial contact with someone to actually getting work. you may be really lucky and you may find you go and pitch someone and you immediately get a load of work, but it may take three years.

So 18 months is sort of the time I feel, you know, Stay in touch, keep developing a relationship, and create these professional friendships. And the other thing is you're never too young to start doing this. Cause, one of the great things is that if you form these personal relationships with people, when you're young, as you get older, they get older and they get more influential and more important and they move around.

So you make more contact. So you continually increase your network. so as you become, more senior, they'll become more senior as well.and then let's think about like, what are we offering the client? So, and that's probably the key phrase, what are we offering the client? So we tend to get a bit into our heads when we're going into this sort of area and think about what do I have to offer?

You know what, I'm going to describe all the great things about me and all of my achievements. We actually need to be a bit more humble on that. All of the power is nowadays with the buyer. so you've got to look at it from their point of view. And there's quite a funny test that you can do, which I actually failed.

so maybe have a go at this. So what I want you to do is to, you're going to snap your fingers five times, and then you're going to draw an E on your forehead. And I won't ask you to do it with a pen, so you have a great big E on your forehead for the rest of the day. but try and remember where the prongs of the E were facing.

So if I do it,

so I think I'll probably be backwards in terms of the way you look, but basically, when I do it, My stalks of my E's are sticking out from left to right. What that's saying is I'm in a self oriented mode. So I'm thinking about myself and that's not what I want to be doing. I want to be thinking about the person who's going to be watching me.

And so I want to be drawing the E the other way around because I want to be doing it for the client. So it's just quite an interesting exercise to see. Are you naturally self oriented or are you naturally. Wanting to be externally oriented. and again, it's maybe a little trick to do, to just get your head in the game when you're starting to think about the client.

So, so you need to think about what is it the client wants? What are they thinking? But also think about how are they feeling and how do you want them to feel? What is it you want 'em to feel? Some organizations, I think Microsoft is one of them and Google actually put an empty chair somewhere to represent the client.

So you can physically see a representation of the client and think about what is going to make them feel good. What's going to make their life better. And this feeling is just as important as the thinking. So. One of the things, that research has shown is that it's not just about delivering a service that's going to be good logically for the client.

It's much more about, they'll be much more interested if you can sell them an experience. So not just a thing, but also an experience. So if you were selling a car, you wouldn't just talk about the, you know, the amazing, beautiful smelling leather. You would talk about what that car is going to enable them to do, allow them to their family, have an amazing day.

So think about what experience are you going to be giving your clients? So is it going to be really fun to work with you? Can they just feel really confident that you're going to support them, that they've, you've got their back? What do you want them to feel? and when you're in pitching to clients, talking, interacting with clients, you can even use a technique called mirroring.

don't do it too obviously, but you know, if you, what you want to do is try and match their energy. So sometimes I find my energy is too high for the people that I'm talking to. I get a bit excitable, so I have to deliberately slow my breathing down and just pull my energy down a bit. Are you matching that energy?

Okay. And then you can mirror what they're doing. So if they're, if they're sitting like this, or they've got a hand up here, you can mirror it. Or if they cross their legs in a certain way, just don't make it too obvious. It won't be as obvious as you might think. and science scientists say that it's mirroring is actually a really natural act.

It's something we do naturally, and it's part of our social glue and it's how we establish trust, but obviously don't do it into. in authentic a way,and then the next thing is listen to the client. So again, we go into pitch. We want to talk. you need to listen. there was a Greek philosopher called Epictetus, who said, you know, you've got to listen.

Nature hath given man one tongue, but two ears that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak. So that's a really good little mantra to have with you and, you know, try and talk about the client. More than you do about your achievements. I remember someone doing a pitch to me once that was amazing because they, they came in, they told us a little bit about themselves, but they've done loads of market research about us.

And they told us about us and how we were viewed in the market. And I mean, most people would rather talk about themselves than talk about you. So, so talk about your clients. and I had the opposite experience with, a law firm who came in to pitch to me, tried to book two meetings for an hour and a half each.

And I said they could only have one. And then they just came in and just told me how fantastic they were doing lots of things that just were completely irrelevant to me. and you can imagine, you know, what the result of that pitch was. and then when you're in, what you want to do when you are with your client is try and create a partnership.

So you want to be, you're getting into the room so you can start a conversation. It doesn't necessarily mean you're immediately going to. Win work, but you want to establish a relationship. You want to find out what are the problems that they have that you can help to solve, what would make them look and feel good?

So creating a partnership, you know, and with, when you're a law firm for clients, like, is, is there, is there stuff you can do to make your clients look really good? So don't let your ego get in the way. If you are, if you're interacting with them, you know, don't try and show off how clever you are.

By telling them they're wrong about something, what can you do to make them look and feel good? And that can involve like thinking about from their point of view, what are their bosses going to think about them? What can they show their bosses? And some of the stuff that law firms did for me when I was general counsel was, you know, they would, They would show me all of the free time that I'd been given, or they'd give a space that we could use, or they do pro bono activities that we could report on.

So think about who, who are the, who are your clients bosses? How can you help them look good in front of, in front of their bosses? And one story I wanted to tell you about making it personal, I mean, a little harder to apply to pitching, apply to pitching , when you're pitching as a law firm, but something that's really interesting in terms of making things personal when you're trying to sell a very famous, one of the early advertising executives who is very famous, in, in New York, was walking past a blind man every day who, had a cup for people to put money in and a sign that said, I am blind.

And he took the sign and said, It's springtime and I am blind. And suddenly, immediately, the guy on the pavement started getting a lot more money because somehow he's, he's making people empathize with the person. So he's making it personal. He's making them feel something. So again, it's not just about saying that we're selling the product.

It's about, it's about how they feel. And then obviously think about how can you make it as easy as possible for the client to give you up to take the next step. So think through that people in advertising call it the off ramp. So how can you make it really easy? For them to take the next step. there is a there's a technique that people use that Probably we wouldn't use as lawyers but i'm going to tell you about it because it might be useful in your personal life and that is It's called motivational interviewing and you might have had salespeople use this on you They'll say like how likely are you to buy this product out of one to ten?

And most people won't say, you know zero they'll say me Oh, five. So then the salesperson will say, why isn't it lower than that? Why isn't it four? So you said you're, you're, you're likely to buy at level five. Why aren't you less likely to buy? And what happens then is the person will give you reasons About why actually there's a bit of them that would like to buy There's a five level that would like to buy and what you're doing there is you're changing the no into a maybe and one of the examples i've seen of this is Is parents negotiating with their children to get them to do some studying so you can say to them.

How do you feel about studying? How likely is it that you're going to do it on a scale of 1 to 10, and then start saying to them, why isn't it lower? And you'll start, you'll start engaging them in the reasons why they don't want to study. And then you can open more of a negotiation. And then the last thing I think I would say is, you know, just make sure you're talking to the right person.

If you're really going out to win work, you know, make sure you know who the right people are to talk to. And it won't always be the person who has the checkbook, who's able to make the decision. Often. Those people are really important. So you need to make sure you've got them in your sites, but often all the people around them who will create a reputation for you as just as important.

So don't diss the more junior people or the people on the periphery, try and form a broad relationship with an organization.

So with all interactions as a summary, think about what do you want them to feel at the end of it? What do you want them to do? And have you made it easy for them to do it?

So that's all for me today on business development. I hope that's been helpful. if anyone out there has any tips, or tricks that they use, that have helped them, I would really love to hear them. But the most important thing I think is just do it, just schedule some time, write a list and make sure you do it.

So good luck, go out there, sell and be incredibly successful.