You can be like her. Yes, you really can be like her. Who is she? I won’t share her name here, but I will simply say she is an IP lawyer and one of her firm’s top rainmakers.
She worked very effectively to get there. As you will see below, I have likely written more about her than any other lawyer I have coached. I write frequently because I want each of you to know that if you are willing to put in the effort, you can achieve what she has achieved. She would tell you the same thing.
I met her for the first time at a firm group coaching dinner in 2007, when I met the lawyers in her firm I would be coaching over that next year. She sat next to me at the dinner and we talked. I learned she had not yet been promoted to partner because she did not have enough business.
The next day we met and I learned of her great interest in outdoor sports clothing. We talked about giving presentations to the outdoor clothing association. I could tell she was excited about that opportunity. We also talked in that first session about the importance of building relationships. I told her I thought that if she focused on 10 (round number) important client and potential client contacts, that would be very effective.
That December, she sent me an email about a holiday gift idea she had done. I blogged about it in: Little Things Matter: Being Creative. As you will see, she made holiday wreaths for her clients. I wrote about it again in 2011: Holiday Gift Idea and included a photo of one of her wreaths.
Her speaking and holiday gifts were important, but they were a small part of what caused her practice to take off. More than anything else, she became successful when she started believing she could attract, retain and expand relationships with clients, her own way. And yes, I wrote about this also: Key to Success: Self Confidence.
Recently, I received an email from her. She said:
Hope you are well. Things are fine here. My practice continues to grow.Kind of crazy. And, there is no doubt that so much of that success is due to your coaching.
She gives me way too much credit. The only thing I did was helped her see the path she could take and encourage her to believe she could succeed on that path. Once she believed, her enthusiasm and energy and desire to help clients took over. Instead of just doing random client development, it became focused like a laser beam.
If you have 20 minutes, listen to my Podcast Interview. I think you will see that you can be like her. But, you can only do it if you change from doing random client development to more deliberate, focused efforts that you enjoy so much that the efforts become part of who you are.