Business development for associates – Eight steps to make the most of your limited time (Part 1 of 2)

Associates face special challenges in business development, primarily due to their lack of time. Tactics that are exactly right for other lawyers may be wrong for associates, because they distract them from more urgent tasks.

This eight step process was designed to help assure that associates get the maximum return from their limited marketing time.

Step 1. Review your firm’s policies and expectations

Different firms have different policies regarding associate marketing, and you need to start by understanding exactly what is expected of associates at your level. So, before you do anything else, speak to several people about how your firm sees the associate role in marketing.

• What would the firm like you to achieve?
• How much time can you devote to business development?

Limit this step to a few hours. In some firms, that will be more than enough time, because the answer is straightforward and clearcut. But if you find that different partners have substantially different views on this, just find out what a few key people think, and move on to the next step.

Step 2. Schedule at least an hour or two for business development, every week
If it’s not on your calendar, you probably won’t do it. So if you decide to invest two hours per week in developing new business, pick a block of time such as 12-2 PM every Tuesday, and put it in your appointment software or book.

We recommend choosing a day early in the week, so that you can reschedule it if something else comes up. And the middle of the day is a good time, because some of your activities may involve lunch. For more details, see How much time do you need for business development?

Step 3. Track the time you actually spend on business development, every week
As management guru Tom Peters put it: “What gets measured gets done.” So if you are serious about developing new business, you will need a continuing system to track your time and your efforts.

If your firm will support your efforts and has a time code that fits, tracking it in the official system can be useful. But whether you do this on the record or off the record, you should keep a simple list like this on your bulletin board to remind yourself of exactly where you stand.

Week of	Hours on biz dev
Goal	3
6/4	4
6/11	0
6/18	3
6/25	1
7/2	3

You may be thinking it would be better to track time every month. Great minds think alike: that’s what I said to my first sales coach. What he said to me was: “Doing it once a month makes it too easy to put it off, and to fall behind. Do it every week.”

Step 4. Define your long-term goal
Develop a long-term plan for defining your legal identity, the niche services you want to provide, and how to become known by potential clients. For more details, see How to define your niche and How to define your ideal client.

Step 5. Develop an “elevator speech”
As you begin to talk to others about your goals and activities, it is often helpful to have a sentence or two ready that summarizes your background and/or what you want to achieve. For more details, see A worksheet to create an elevator speech.

Next week, I will discuss the other three steps:

Step 6. Get more advice from other lawyers
Step 7. Prioritize relentlessly
Step 8. Followup consistently

This post was adapted from The LegalBizDev Desk Reference.  For more information, Download legalbizdevsuccess_kit_summaryl.pdf.