I thought I’d share with you the recently published article in The National by Allison Wolf and Joan Paul. The following is a reprint of the article that appeared in the Canadian Bar Association magazine in December, 2007.
Making it rain
Women lawyers have unique talents that serve them and their firms well
in the increasingly competitive field of rainmaking.
By Joan Paul and Allison Wolf
Décembre 2007 www.cba.org 43
ROBERT JOHANNSEN
What’s New In…
Recent reports have made clear that women
lawyers still face many challenges in the
traditional law firm. But these lawyers are
also slowly changing how firms market
themselves to clients, coming together to
explore how to develop business in a manner that plays
to their special strengths and creates a different market
dynamic. Here are just some of the unique ways in which
women are revolutionizing lawyer marketing.
The art of conversation
One of women’s special strengths is conversation, a skill
that lawyers simply must possess in order to succeed.
“Marketing (and selling) begin to work,” law practice
management guru David Maister recently wrote, “when
a conversation moves away from being a role-to-role
exchange of capabilities, contracts, and costs, and
becomes a person-to-person interactive dialogue about
ideas, beliefs, and perspectives.”
Patricia McLaren, Regional Manager of Client
Development with Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP in
Calgary, remarks that the women in her firm known for
their rainmaking ability possess both standout professional
credentials and strong personal connections with
their clients and colleagues. They are gifted at using skillful
dialogue to connect with clients or team up with colleagues
in developing a practice.
“Women are great listeners,” adds Adam Pekarsky,
Director of Professional Development and Recruitment
at Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP in Edmonton. Women
can use their listening skills to find a common point of
interest with clients, he says, because they enjoy engaging
in a broad spectrum of topics and connecting personally,
whereas men tend to focus more on specific topics
that don’t easily provide common points of interest.
Emotionally intelligent
Jessica Green, counsel at Petro-Canada in Calgary, emphasizes
that while expertise and reputation are critical,
clients also value the emotional aspects of their relationships
with the firm. In Green’s experience, “the best rainmakers
I know have extremely high EQs [Emotional
Intelligence Quotients], are responsive, and don’t take
their clients for granted.”
Emotional intelligence is very much a buzz phrase
among psychologists and coaches. Lawyers with high
EQs can perceive and harness emotions for solving problems
and other tasks, as well as for understanding their
clients’ and their own emotions
accurately.
While not everyone has
high EQ, lawyers can
access coaches who specialize
in the area to improve
these skills. For example, a
lawyer might score high on
intrapersonal skills such as emotional self-awareness,
assertiveness and independence, while posting lower
scores in stress management or adaptability. Understanding
your own emotional resources helps you relate
more effectively with clients.
The big event
Female clients are growing, especially among the ranks
of corporate counsel, so it makes sense to develop marketing
events targeted specially to their needs and interests.
Marketing events can be about more than schmoozing
— they can enable the establishment of personal connections
and trust.
When planning events for women, it’s important to
remember the extreme time challenges under which many professional
women operate. Work-life balance might now be an
issue for both genders, but women are still the ones who wind
up with the bulk of child care.
In the September 2007 issue of Harvard Business Review,
authors Alice Heagly and Linda Carli shared the surprising
news that even with men helping more in the home, women
are putting in more parenting hours now than they were in
1965.With more on their plates than ever, events for busy professional
women must provide both an entertaining escape
from the work week and time-saving benefits.
Reeva Finkel, partner and chair of marketing at Blaney
McMurtry LLP in Toronto, came up with a way of achieving
both these objectives. Blaney’s launched an annual fashion
show event, which has been a huge hit with the firm’s female
clients. After being held each year in Blaney McMurtry’s main
reception area, the event grew so popular that it had to be
moved to a larger venue.
Combining fashion, shopping, and networking, Finkel
hit the target with Blaney’s fashion show event. While hockey
tickets and golf days still have their place, and perhaps
always will, a broader spectrum of marketing events is a
refreshing change for clients of both genders. One might
consider cooking classes or golf days combined with lessons
as alternatives.
Professional networks
Increasingly, women are taking active roles in organizations
such as the Professional Women’s Network in Vancouver and
the CBA’s Women Lawyers’ Forum to connect with other
women lawyers and professionals. These groups are becoming
a more important venue for women lawyers to build up referral
networks and make contact with potential clients.
Young associates like Melanie McDonald of Fraser
Milner Casgrain in Calgary welcome relationships with more
senior female partners, who can make a big difference in the
career of an up-and-coming lawyer. But not everyone works
in a firm with a large percentage of female partners like
Fraser Milner.
Regrettably, the small percentage of female partners isn’t
consistent with the growing number of women associates, and
this makes it difficult to learn business development from
female role models. When mentoring isn’t available to a young
lawyer, these professional associations can provide a valuable
alternative.
Keys to success
With the growing number of women lawyers, why aren’t
more known for their role in the rainmaking game? Lack of
time could be a culprit. All lawyers are busy, but women
lawyers who enter motherhood are often unable to involve
themselves in the social networks that are crucial to rainmaking
and advancing in their firms.
One way to overcome the time challenge is to become
more methodical and direct about marketing. Finkel, when a
mother with young children, adopted a strategy early: she
began taking a few minutes on Sunday afternoons to make a
to-do list of business development activities for the coming
week. Then, on Monday mornings, she worked quickly to
check them off her list, or scheduled them into her calendar for
later in the week.
Finkel has carried out this habit for the past ten years, and
has seen it contribute to her success as a rainmaker. While todo
lists alone won’t make the rainmaker, the discipline of planning
is a vital component to distinguishing oneself as a successful
marketer.
Another business development challenge is closing the
deal. Some lawyers report that because they develop such
strong relationships with clients, they find it difficult to ask
for their business. It’s important to keep in mind that clients
are also business-minded. They expect their lawyers to ask for
their business. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. It can be as
simple as that.
Rainmaking is the key to success in any business, and it
took great rainmakers to build today’s successful law firms.
The reality is that women are now, more than ever, positioned
to play a key role in this evolving world of the law firm, and
are in the process of making it rain. N
Joan Paul is a Certified Executive Coach and Owner of J. Paul Training Inc., in Calgary.
AllisonWolf is a Certified Executive Coach, author of “The Lawyer Coach” blog, and founder
of Shift Works Strategic Inc. a business coaching and consulting firm based in Vancouver.
