Small Gestures, Big Impact: Rethinking How We Show Up for Clients

Recently, I was invited to a “fireside chat” with Matt Dixon by the executive intelligence firm Equilar.  

Matt Dixon is the author of the “Activator Advantage: What Today's Rainmakers Do Differently” - based on a study of more than 3,000 people in 41 different professional service firms.  Matt released his book on the subject last month.  If you are interested, you can find it here.  

Equilar produced a great video recap of the event.  

Here are the key takeaways:

1. Clients increasingly say that loyalty or past experience (even if successful) is not how they select counsel.  
2. Successful partners commit time each week to business development – working on their business not just in their business.  
3. Creating business value or personal value for clients/prospects can be as effective – or more effective – than asking for the work or promoting yourself as the expert.  

This reminds me of a meeting I had during the pandemic with a client.  I set up a non-billable check-in with the client to see how they were doing.  The client freely explained the current stress points with the business and within the legal department.  I learned the most important thing on her mind was how HHS would treat telemedicine post-pandemic.  We could certainly help with that.  

She also left me with one powerful final statement.  She asked me to please stop sending her our practice insights – at least without some personalization about how or whether it applied to her business.  She was receiving too many “insights” so it was just noise.  

When you think of creating business value, it could be as simple as thinking about how a particular blog post/insight/article applies to the client's business and sending it to the client with 2-3 sentences of why they should consider it and how we can actually help.  

I particularly like Matt’s advice in the Equilar recap.  When you block time on your calendar to do business development, block time on Sunday night or Monday to plan what you will actually use that time for.  Otherwise, it is too easy to simply work through that BD calendar block.   

At its best, business development is not about the pitch – it's about showing up with intention and a genuine desire to add value.