Despite Labor Strife, Lawyer Rainmaking Needs to Take a Lesson from the NBA
Many in the legal industry believe that, in order to be a rainmaker, a lawyer must excel in every area of client development - including industry research, networking, lead generation, sales calls, getting a decision, and “beauty contests.” If a lawyer excels in only one or two of these areas, and cannot develop clients without the assistance of others, he or she is not considered a rainmaker.
By that standard, Rajon Rondo of the Boston Celtics would not be considered a basketball player. Though he’s one of the league’s best passers, Rondo is consistently maligned for his "inability to develop a reliable jump shot, improve his free throw shooting, or consistently attack the rim.” Here’s a player who is not very good at the core purpose of the game - scoring points. By that narrow definition, one would think Rondo is a fringe player at best…someone perhaps in danger of being dropped from the team.
In truth, Rondo has been named to the last two All-Star games (the top 24 players in the league). Luckily for Rondo, NBA teams view things through a wider lens than do most in the legal world. They know that a player can be a star if he has one or two critical skills that help the team produce collectively. What Rondo does so well is rack up "assists," i.e., eight times per game, he directly enables someone else to score points.
Think about the parallel for lawyers.
To a rainmaker or relationship partner, what's the value of a senior associate passing along eight quality sales leads each month? What if that partner had not one, but two or three, associates skilled in lead generation? With those 200 - 300 legitimate sales opportunities created by associates every year, wouldn't it be almost impossible not to experience significant growth?
For too long, firms and lawyers have clung to the unsupportable idea of the singular, natural rainmaker. That's an attractive vanity, especially if you're that rainmaker, but it comes at a great price. As long as you hold that that these skills are somehow innate, rather than learned, you'll fail to invest in preparing others to provide you with a multiplier that you couldn't begin to match even if you billed zero hours and spent all 2000 hours plying your "natural" rainmaking skill each year.
The good news is that many contributory roles require only the intelligence and "lawyering" skills already proved on billable matters, and that learning how to apply them to getting hired is easily and inexpensively taught.
Here's how simple it can be:
Think of what business problem your most valuable legal skill/service solves. Isn't that what you want people to associate you with?
Think about how often your marketing and sales activity ends up with no decision at all, which keeps you "following up" until you're weary and embarrassed. What if you used your lawyer-trained questioning skills to learn whether or not the prospect must make a decision, and opt out if, because the consequences of doing nothing are acceptable, they have the luxury of not making one?
Returning to our basketball analogy, what if you could "unbundle" Michael Jordan and have five far-lesser players, each with only one skill, yet who, collectively, perform with equal brilliance? You'd have
one player who shot the ball well;
another that drove to the basket well;
another that rebounded well;
another that played exceptional defense; and
another who could will other players through adversity.
Wouldn't it be much easier to identify five players, each with only one skill, than to find one superstar with all five skills? Wouldn't it be easier and less costly to refine and polish those single skills, rather than try to develop multiple skills in each player?
If you allow it, it can be that simple. Oh, and lots of those single-skill players are already sitting on your bench, dying to contribute.
RainmakerVT subscribers can learn how to master each of these by going to:
Getting Found > 1. What Do You Want to Be Known For? > 1. “Door Opener”: Associating Yourself with Issues That Drive Demand
Getting Chosen > 1. The Decision Process > 4. The Cost of Doing Nothing
Non-subscribers can gain access to every RainmakerVT course, including these two, by taking advantage of our limited trial offer, featuring a 90-day, 100% money-back guarantee.
