Steve Fretzin, LawFuel Contributor
Over the past 30 years, I have played hundreds of rounds of golf, never thinking much about how it related to business development. I was too busy swinging away, just trying to get to the next tee box without losing my ball.
A few years ago I met a golf instructor and decided to take a few lessons.It was a good thing I did because it not only improved my game, it provided a supplementary experience that really struck a chord with me as it related to business development.
As an attorney, you’ve probably been involved in a “pitch” meeting with a new prospective client. You may recall the nervousness or anxiousness felt around the idea of signing up for piece of new business.
During your meeting, you probably believe that the end result or “close” is the single most important element of the meeting. While your origination numbers may depend on “closing the deal,” there is another important aspect of running a successful business development meeting that holds the key to your success.
Let me go back to my golf pro for a minute and explain. After meeting and chatting with my new golf pro for a few minutes, he invited me onto to green carpet to take a few swings. He watched me intently for a few minutes as Isteppedupand smashed a few balls into the range.
Finally, he turned to me and said, “Steve, do you enjoy swinging the golf club?” Being terribly confused by his question I said, “What?” I simply had no idea what he was talking about. Fortunately, he explained, “You seem to be approaching each swing with the intention of getting to the outcome as fast as possible. You don’t seem to be enjoying the actual swing.”
I paused and thought about that for a minute. Do I really enjoy swinging a golf club or am I just trying to get it over with, hoping to land the ball somewhere in-bounds? I then realized there was very little enjoyment in swinging the golf club and I was in fact rushing each shot to quickly get to an outcome.
For me, this conversation was a real epiphany. If sports golf is all about swinging a golf club repeatedly, and I’m not enjoying the swing, then am I really enjoying the game of golf? Pretty deep, right? At the time, I didn’t have the skill sets to truly enjoy the swing.
Therefore, I have only focused on the end result of each shot. The true enjoyment of golf is in the beauty and enjoyment of each swing. It then became clear that a better, more fluid swing will produce a much better outcome.
This is where the missing piece of the puzzle was for me. It’s also where I realized how perfectly this scenario relates to attorneys and the process of business development.
As I thought more about the swing in golf and what happens in a typical pitch meeting, there was something unnatural about both of these activities
.Just like my wild and harried swing, rushing to pitch a new prospective client can lead to an unpredictable outcome.
Enjoyment of the Swing
A better solution would be to slow things down and enjoy conducting a successful business meeting. Instead of rushing to pitch and talk about yourself, you would build rapport and focus on asking great questions.
To paint an analogy between business development and a golfer’s approach, consider how the stableford scoring system encourages a consistent game by rewarding positive outcomes without penalizing mistakes too harshly. This method fosters a focus on long-term strategies rather than just individual swings or business pitches, mirroring the importance of building sustainable client relationships and asking insightful questions.
You would listen to your prospective clients legal problems and not feel obligated to solve them on the spot. While this might go against one’s natural instincts to problem solve, it will be a refreshing change to focus on not solving problems. By concentrating on asking tough questions and uncovering a prospective client’s pain points, there will be more urgency for them to hire you.
The “enjoyment of the swing” in business development is to be found in the relationship-building and questioning process that allows us to truly understand our prospective clients’ problems, needs and desires.
If you focus your time and attention there, they have to believe that you are indeed an expert and someone with whom they should be working. Having your focus on the prospective client and not on yourself can only help you in developing a new client opportunity.
It might also separate you from the other attorneys who are still hacking away with their sales pitches. As you think about this new process of walking buyers through a buying decision, you can truly enjoy your business development efforts and take away the pressure to just “close the sale.
”When the process is all about the buyer, good results will just happen.
Steve Fretzin is a bestselling author, host of the BE THAT LAWYER Podcast, and business development coach exclusively for attorneys. Steve has committed his career to helping lawyers learn key growth skills not currently taught in law school. His clients soon become top rainmakers and credit Steve’s program and coaching for their success. He can be reached directly by email at steve@fretzin.com. Or you can easily find him on his website at www.fretzin.com or LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevefretzin/.
