Business Development

Why Batman Is Not Good At Bringing In Business

An interesting post today by Stew Friedman in the Harvard Business blog. He muses on Batman, having just seen the movie (which grossed $155 million -- yes, you read right) in its first weekend. More specifically, he ponders what Batman's hidden identity costs him, and how that relates to work and business.

It also, I think, relates to business development. A lot, in fact.

Here's what Friedman has to say:

We all need to draw boundaries among the different parts of our lives, of course. We have to find ways to shut work off, for example, in order to pay full attention to our families, and vice versa. But those boundaries can be too thick; the mask’s costs can be too dear.

I think this is especially true when working with customers in a professional services firm. Whether you're trying to bring in new clients, or solidifying your relationship with existing clients, there is an enormous temptation to hide your real personality behind your professional mask.

Lawyers do this all the time. They have the obligatory Wall of Diplomas behind their desks. They dress formally. They speak a different language. They have extensive training in being guided by facts and logic rather than emotion.

The result, often, is that clients don't ever get a sense of what kind of person actually lurks behind that Hickey Freeman suit. And, unfortunately, that is the key to establishing and strengthening long-term client relationships.

A key relationship is not between a lawyer and a client. It's between two people. Even if you're the most serious, driven, stiffest personality in the world, it's absolutely essential that you lower your guard, drop the mask, and let the client see, and know, who you really are.

Ultimately, all long-lasting business relationships are personal. And the higher you go on the business food chain, the more personal they become. Particularly if you're an attorney, your clients are paying for your judgment, your experience and your sensitivity's to their needs. Great business relationships are all about communication between two flesh-and-blood people. Examples of this abound. Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. Montgomery Burns and Smithers.

Okay. Maybe not the last one.

However, the point here is very real. While donning that mask -- remaining in your lawyer or accountant persona -- may have an upside, when it comes to really developing bulletproof relationships with clients, it's a bad idea. Don't do it, and if you are doing it -- stop. Be yourself.

Larry Bodine Likes This New Partner Announcement. Why don't I?

So let's leave it alone,  'cause we can't see eye to eye.
There ain't no good guys,  there ain't no bad guys.
There's only you and me and we just disagree.
Ooo - ooo - ooohoo     oh - oh - o-whoa
-We Just Disagree, a cheesy song that was a hit when I was thirteen years old

In a blog post yesterday, Larry Bodine opined that a recent new partner announcement from a law firm in the Washington, D.C. area was really good. I disagree. Since I assume the image is copyrighted, and I don't have permission to use it, I'm not going to, but it's on Larry's blog. Go over and take a look, then come back.

Back? Good.

Now, Larry's partially right. This piece is way, way better than 98% of the new partner announcements out there. It actually has some design, and some thought, behind it. Yet, I disagree with Larry's assessment of it. My issues with this announcement:

• It's hard to read. The typeface, which is in a sort of silver color, does not contrast well with the gold background.
• The image looks like it's been heavily Photoshopped, which makes it look sort of unreal.
• Her contact information is at the very bottom, in the same type as the rest of the announcement. It should be much more prominent.
• The copy doesn't give a simple, clear, statement of what she does. It also describes what she does rather than how that helps her clients.
• The design -- a gold background, with her photo in a circle and another circle setting off part of the headline -- strikes me as a little too playful. Particularly for a blonde, female attorney, the last impression you want to create is "Ooh ... bubbles" which was my reaction. It looks kind of like a party invitation.

Caveat: I have not seen the whole piece, just the image on Larry's blog. The effect may be completely different if you hold it in your hands.
Caveat #2: Larry is usually right on the money about almost everything. Taste, as they say, is a matter of taste.

Ooo - ooo - ooohoo     oh - oh - o-whoa.

Eschew Obfuscation

My father was a surgeon, and he had a number of rules for how to run a medical practice. One of them was that if your physician kept you waiting for more than five minutes, leave. Another was that if your physician, in a conversation with you, uses any Latin at all, you should find another doctor.

This always made a lot of sense to me, and it was recently reinforced in a post on Bob Sutton's terrific blog Work Matters. Sutton is a member of the Stanford faculty, and wrote recently about a lecture delivered by a woman named Polly LaBarre, author of a book entitled "Mavericks at Work". LaBarre writes about companies who succeed because they are different. Original thinking, that connects directly and immediately with customers, is often the difference between creating Starbucks, and creating what-is-the-name-of-that-coffee-place-on-Laurel-Street-again?. She also has a blog. And in Sutton's class, she said the following:

[M]avericks are so effective at inspiring innovation partly because they use authentic and compelling language, not hollow business language.

Right!
Lawyers, are you listening?
Hey! Consultants! Hear that?

I make my living teaching marketing to people who are not marketers. One of the things I obsess over is how to help them connect with their prospective clients emotionally. And the first hurdle is language. Professionals do not use language like everyone else does. Words and terms have extremely specific meanings, and ideally, as little emotional content as possible. They're not intended to connect, but to define. And this kills marketing and communicaitons dead.

Do not use Latin. Do not use fancy, hypernarrow legal terminology like "collateral estoppel" or even "cause of action." You shouldn't do this every anyway, but especially don't do it when you are trying to market, or sell.

It doesn't impress the client. It annoys them. Annoyed people do not want to be your clients. People do not become clients because of your erudidition, no matter what they taught you in law/medical/business school. They become your clients because they believe you can help them, and because they believe you understand them.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

Just kidding.