I see two key themes underlying this post. One is authenticity. Be you. Don’t hide what you know or don’t know. Show up as yourself. The second is relationships matter. Building them will help you win business. It requires focus, patience, and listening more than talking. Not easy skills to have, but critical to succeeding over the short term and the long term.
"Many lawyers went into the call expecting to argue and debate, so when I pointed out a weakness, the lawyer would reflexively disagree with my point."
Literally had this happen last week! A judge ended up doing a full 180 on a policy change he initially wanted to make because, before we started giving our arguments against it, we simply *said his words from a previous discussion back to him* to restart the discussion. He reflexively had to prove "us" wrong and we definitely weren't going to correct the misunderstanding. And so now he thinks he won and that our opinion was his own idea all along! Problem solved, haha. Lawyers can be so weird! (And yes, I recognize that group includes me. I do the credential look-up thing too.)
So interesting. Query how this affects lawyers’ ability to develop business, which is like “selling” yourself and firm to a business client, where an in-house counsel is the lead decisionmaker.
It's a good question. I've always been surprised by how unsophisticated law firm sales processes are. I mean, don't get me wrong--it obviously works. But there are a few ideas that they could probably borrow from the technology world.
I see two key themes underlying this post. One is authenticity. Be you. Don’t hide what you know or don’t know. Show up as yourself. The second is relationships matter. Building them will help you win business. It requires focus, patience, and listening more than talking. Not easy skills to have, but critical to succeeding over the short term and the long term.
Great points, thanks for sharing Colin!
"Many lawyers went into the call expecting to argue and debate, so when I pointed out a weakness, the lawyer would reflexively disagree with my point."
Literally had this happen last week! A judge ended up doing a full 180 on a policy change he initially wanted to make because, before we started giving our arguments against it, we simply *said his words from a previous discussion back to him* to restart the discussion. He reflexively had to prove "us" wrong and we definitely weren't going to correct the misunderstanding. And so now he thinks he won and that our opinion was his own idea all along! Problem solved, haha. Lawyers can be so weird! (And yes, I recognize that group includes me. I do the credential look-up thing too.)
I love this story! I guess it's not for selling to lawyers, it works for advocacy too!
Great article.
Thank you!
So interesting. Query how this affects lawyers’ ability to develop business, which is like “selling” yourself and firm to a business client, where an in-house counsel is the lead decisionmaker.
It's a good question. I've always been surprised by how unsophisticated law firm sales processes are. I mean, don't get me wrong--it obviously works. But there are a few ideas that they could probably borrow from the technology world.