"The Entrepreneurial Attorney: developing a marketing mindset in business development coaching".  This was the excellent presentation that James Stapleton, Chief Business Development and Marketing Officer at Blank Rome and Marianne Merritt Talbot, Executive Vice President at SCG Legal gave at the LMA Mid Atlantic Conference earlier this week.

Marianne and James' presentation was stacked full of fantastic advice and takeaways.  When it comes to driving business here is just some of that advice:

Make a plan:

• Speak to one client every day; speak to three prospects a week.  
• Make a list of 30 potential clients.
• Call a reporter four times a year with an idea for a story

To do right now:

• Schedule 2 weeks worth of BD activity
• Schedule Friday afternoon for BD calls
• Set Google Alerts to listen to key clients, key prospects and what is happening in their worlds
• Enter your 'Circles of influence'
• Identify up and coming clients within firms you want to work with.  Go with the rising tide
• Talk to your clients about their business issue - not about you
• Create a CRM (even if it is in excel)
• Schedule a lunch meeting for next week
• Clip and send an article of interest to a client.  I will add here if you use Passle you know all about this. Use ISTATOY tool - I Saw This and Thought of You)
• Join an association - and do something that means you interact with prospects and clients (not treasurer)!
• Send a handwritten note to a former colleague - think about your alumni 
• Blog, tweet - be present online

The more you do the more you get

From the floor came another fabulous final piece of advice for those of us who work with attorneys (or other high performance, smart professional service folk):

Fear is a greater motivator than greed... Explain what might happen if they do not take their advice :)