This week I am giving clues on how to ask friends and contacts for business and close the sale.

My second clue is put yourself in a position that you never need to ask for business or try to close the sale. You might be thinking:

“That’s great, but how do I do it?”

I tell lawyers I coach:

“Identify a problem, opportunity or change (before your potential clients know they have one), offer a solution and give it away.”

This is a two step process.

  1. Put yourself in the position to identify the problem.
  2. Create valuable content and give it away.

You can identify problems, opportunities and changes by having a keen sense of what is happening in your clients’ world.

You know better than me what the top legal issues are in 2019 and going forward. I see some as follows:

  • Healthcare
  • Privacy
  • Antitrust
  • Technology
  • Green New Deal concepts and other environmental issues
  • Immigration
  • Workplace harassment and violence
  • Guns
  • Campaign finance
  • Trade Secret Protection

I will leave you with a specific example of how I applied this concept.

Historically, by federal and state law highways and bridges were built by contracts awarded to the low bidder. In 1988, the Federal Highway Administration’s SEP-14 project began to evaluate Innovative contracting practices. Those practices included design-build contracting. Even though contractors protested this dramatic change,  I knew the “evaluation” would ultimately lead to design-build contracts being used to construct most large projects.

I wrote a guide for contractors and began speaking at industry meetings all over the country. As a result of identifying this change and giving away a solution, contractors and state DOT’s sought me out to help them with design-build projects all over the country. I never had to ask for the business.

So, the second clue to asking for business/closing the sale is to put yourself in position to have potential clients seek your help so you never need to ask for business.