by Gary Mitchell | Jan 22, 2018 | Building relationships, Building your referral network, Business development, Getting more referrals, Growing your practice, Networking, Raising your profile, Referrals
To kick off 2018 I’ve created a new LinkedIn Group-Professional Services Marketing Group.
The purpose is twofold. 1st, to offer a forum where professional service providers can share insights and knowledge, wins and challenges as they grow their businesses. There is power in collective wisdom.
The 2nd goal of this group is to allow you to network ‘virtually’ with other professionals; build relationships and develop more referrals.
The concept of the ‘Mastermind Group’ comes from author Napoleon Hill, in his book “Think and Grow Rich”, published in the early part of the last century. I’ve always loved the concept and many of my clients have and continue to use this strategy to grow their businesses.
Join here
And then invite your best referral sources and contacts to join. The more members, the more collective wisdom and the potential to build more relationships leading to more referrals, leading to more business.
#businesscoach #mastermindgroup #growyourbusiness
by Gary Mitchell | Sep 29, 2014 | Business development, Growing your practice, Raising your profile
Shotgun approach or strategic approach? That’s easy. Strategic. Don’t do what everyone else does (‘show up and throw up’). Look at building your profile from the client’s perspective first, then your own. Here’s how you can avoid the lacklustre results you get from a self-centred shotgun approach by being strategic about how you build your profile: First, be where your target market is; second, be relevant. How do you do that? Ask your current clients what events they attend and why. Ask them what they read and why. Ask them what content would be of value to them and why. Find out what’s missing. Then contact the associations and publications your target market attends and reads and ask them the same questions. This is a highly effective and strategic way of ensuring you are where your target market is and you’re relevant to them and their needs.
by Gary Mitchell | Aug 21, 2014 | Coaching, Raising your profile, Your career
Situation: A 4th year associate already engaged in business development wants to take it to the next level and begin attracting the ‘bigger fish’. She has the attention of one of the senior named partners and decides to invest in coaching to help her build her practice. I was not surprised to learn that she was going to pay me directly and not ask her firm to cover the investment. She did this for many reasons, not the least of which being that she didn’t want anything hanging over her head. She didn’t want the firm to hold expectations over her. The only person who knew about my work with her was the senior partner that she did work for. And he was very supportive.
Approach: We created a business plan for her practice. We identified key events to attend and network. We identified key contacts to help her build her network of referrals. Her confidence in herself and her ability to attract new clients is increasing. She created her own networking/mastermind group and meets monthly. I helped her build her LinkedIn profile and network.
Results: By taking this initiative and hiring me directly, and gaining business development skills, this makes her more valuable as a Lawyer. Whether she ends up staying where she is or looks to move to another firm, her ability to build her own book of business makes her more valuable and attractive to partnership. She invested in herself, in her career and her success. Based on my experience, she will see that investment pay off in dividends for years to come.
by Gary Mitchell | Aug 15, 2014 | Business development, Business plan, Raising your profile
The Legal A Team is a newly formed alliance of legal marketers who deliver big firm experience to small to mid-size firms and solo practitioners. As a Co-Founder, I’m pleased that we can offer the small to mid-sized law firms and solo practice lawyers the same level of expertise usually only found at the big firm level. We have assembled a team of experts who have worked for some of the biggest law firms in North America. We have a complete range of services: business development training, business development coaching, legal marketing and branding strategy, legal public relations, legal social media, and websites.
We know the demands of small-and mid-sized firms are great. An up until now, they haven’t had access to the same resources of larger firms. Finding the right coaching, training, marketing, and PR people for you and your firm while still running your practice and serving the needs of demanding clients is a huge challenge. You are no longer on your own. Legal A Team is here to help you grow your solo practice, or small to mid-size firm.
by Gary Mitchell | Apr 14, 2014 | Business development, Coaching, Market intelligence, Raising your profile
Once you’ve addressed the first three considerations, and before you go out there in all directions with your newly found focus on marketing; the final consideration in becoming more targeted in your approach to business development is to understand where you can get in front of your target audience. The easiest and most effective way of determining this, is simply to ask your current ‘ideal’ clients, the ones you want more of:
What associations do they belong to? What events do they attend and why? What publications do they read and why? What are some of the most pressing challenges they are facing right now? I refer to this approach as ‘soft market research’. Asking your current clients these questions will tell you everything you need to know in how to get in front of people just like them-more potential ideal clients.
Having followed this TST™ methodology has led my clients to produce amazing results. See the thing is when you are pointed in the right direction, given the tools to succeed, because of your training, you learn very quickly. You are able to create new habits which help you excel in business development. Working with lawyers has made me a better coach.
by Gary Mitchell | Mar 20, 2014 | blogs and blogging, Raising your profile, Social media
This has become a hot topic of late. As a busy lawyer when do you have time to get on social media and make an impact? Here are a few suggestions to maximize your time, and produce better results. Starting with your blog, instead of having to rely on time becoming available in your busy schedule, block off a couple of hours and write your posts for the month. You can schedule them ahead of time. Make sure your blog gets posted to your LinkedIn and Twitter accounts expanding your reach. A good habit to get into is before checking your email in the morning, take about ten minutes and visit LinkedIn. See what’s going on, if there is something that might be of interest to your clients or audience that you can post yourself, or re-post someone else’s content.
Then throughout your day when you need to take a break from your work, or find yourself losing concentration, pop back on and again see what’s happening. It’s all about making it work for you, having the discipline to keep on it every day. And it really only takes a few minutes. The important thing is repetition and keeping top of mind with your clients and audience.
