Business Development

It's a New Year -- Call Your Contacts, But Plan the Call

Ford Harding made a good point right before the year ended, one I'm going to kind of borrow and expand upon. In his December 29 post, he suggests calling your contacts at the end of the year to thank them for their business, ask them if they'd like their invoice before the end of the year, and so on. All great ideas.

Another version of this is to call at the beginning of the year (i.e., now) and tell them that you're going through your address book, and trying to implement a resolution to reconnect with all the people you have lost touch with. It's essentially the same approach, but from a slightly different direction.

The point of all this is that one of the most valuable assets in networking is an excuse to call people. However, it's equally important that the call go smoothly, which takes a little bit of planning. So, implement these ideas, but coupled with some idea of what you're going to say. In other words, it's not enough simply to have a valid reason to call someone. You also have to think through -- and this takes about one minute -- what you want to talk to them about, and where you want the conversation to go.

This is Sales 101 -- never lose control of the call. The point is that at all costs, you want to avoid a call that makes everyone feel a little uncomfortable and weird -- one that goes like this:

You:  "Hi, Barack, this is Peter Darling. I'm going through my contacts, and trying to reconnect with people. We haven't spoken for a while, and I thought I'd give you a call and say "hello". How's it going?"
Barack: " Fine, thanks. Good to hear from you."
Uncomfortable silence in which nobody knows quite what to say next.

Use the "getting back in touch" approach, but never just wing it. Plan. The Boy Scouts were right -- be prepared.

Ballard Spahr has a brilliant idea

Larry Bodine's blog and Law.com reported today that Ballard Spahr has done something that I think is just plain brilliant. They have brought on board a person whose full-time job is to simply interview clients, and report her findings to the firm. This is sheer genius.

Client surveys are complex, expensive, and often don't really get at the qualitative issues. Having partners interview clients often doesn't work because a) they're not skilled in interviewing; b) the client is often uncomfortable telling the attorney that his firm has done a mediocre job.

Also, a client interview is not simply a way to receive information. It's also a way to communicate to the client, loud and clear, that you care about their experience, and you take their responses seriously. By hiring someone to do this full-time, Ballard has put their money where their mouth is. This is just plain smart, and an elegant solution to what's often a nasty problem.

One suggestion: if the firm is going to solicit client feedback, it has to put systems in place to actually act on what they learn. In other words, simply getting the feedback isn't enough. It has to make a difference. They have to take the information and do something with it. Receiving feedback and then being perceived as ignoring it is far worse than not asking for it at all.

With that caveat, this is a wonderful idea.