Relationship Building Done Efficiently to Increase Attorney Cross-Promotional Services by Maine Prince  

Every year, I would look back and see that I attended twenty-four events that were put together by various professional associations. The one thing that was prevalent, was that I was going to exchange business cards dutifully with random people. However, in the back of my mind I was really looking for a connection to someone that knew someone else, so I could get someone else, to introduce me to someone that was a key contact. My focus was to get my foot in the door to refer a connection for marketing and business development for a rising star attorney.

Somehow out of those events and the connections made, our firm was able to gain twelve new clients and thirty-two new prospects. But with all these new contacts, I knew there needed to be a system in place to ensure the connections were not like holding sand in your hand at the beach. Hello BeFirst CRM, how are you today?

Having a simple method for gathering and tracking contact information is great as you work with your business development manager and administrative assistant to facilitate data entry. The simplicity is right at your fingertips every time you return from an event. Once the system is in place through formatting and testing protocols, your administrative assistant will be taught the implementation. Although you will have the ability to provide input and even customize the layout. Touching on an essential value with your prospective client because you sent the handwritten birthday card a few days before the actual birthdate. Why send the card before the birthdate?

Remember, this is a key contact and your method of breaking down the trust barrier is to be your authentic self. This could lead to an impromptu invitation to their birthday celebration. After all, everyone eats cake on their birthday right? The intrinsic value that you instill in your prospect shifts their focus not on you selling them your services, but on you as a person that happens to work at a great law firm that can offer a fresh perspective on an old approach. Now, who’s ready to party?

You are? Good, let me show you what that looks like in setting up this system so that you can BeFirst. As a business development team, we have worked diligently on making the BeFirst CRM

home screen user-friendly so that your administrative assistants only needs you to either text them the contact name of whom you met, or send a quick picture of the business card you exchanged, or you can snap a picture of the business card yourself and it will automatically be entered as a contact. Every Friday, on your assistant’s calendar will be an hour dedicated to reviewing your contact list and scheduling calendar alerts for you to begin initiating contact to begin your new relationship.

Typically, never tell a new contact that we are better than any law firm they have ever worked with. Why? Because, the proof is in the pudding. We want them to want to come to you and say, “Why haven’t you tried to pitch me yet?” Thinking there is a catch, but there is not, we are just building a relationship first – so when it counts, we can BeFirst on their mind for counsel.

“The catch is that we want you to focus on

BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS with each key

contact.” We want your new contact to know they can trust you with intimate details about their challenges without being intrusive. Now you have every bit of information at your fingertips on your cell phone and your desktop calendar, your only task is to follow thru with executing a simple contact to your prospective client. Keep in mind, this is not a cold-call … you just met! This is not pitch time for new business …you – just - met! This is … the first time your new contact will be impressed by your authenticity. Now you are inside the trust circle. BeFirst streamlines your contacts.

Think of this like getting married. Yes, everyone is different and like me, you could be a romantic and its love at first sight. A majority of couples, that eventually marry, have met by chance, through a friend, or even celebrating the New Year. What’s next after you’ve met? You may (or may not) exchange phone numbers, then you set up your last first date, then you build chemistry. Then hopefully, there’s another date. At this

point, maybe there is one more date. Now inevitably, it is time for your first time holding hands. Next, one day/night, here comes the time for your first kiss. Pause. Are you remembering?

At this point, I want you to think of all the steps it took you to build up the courage to make that first contact with a word you grew up saying as a toddler to begin word association, “Hello.” Earning trust is the journey of a lifetime because you know what you want, you see it right there in front of you, but making a mistake of being overbearing, overwhelming, or aggressive, could ruin the fabric of the time space continuum if you rush things. Thus sit back – relax, you are relationship building. BeFirst CRM gives you efficient time management.

As a firm, we have already created a foundation of success and acknowledgment among peers, professional associations, and received industry awards that exemplify our victories as a practice group. Since you are a rising star, this relationship is going to last longer than a first date, we want this marriage to work so your new client contact knows you not only take out the trash, ala fix problems and put out fires from unfortunate shortcomings. You also mow the grass, do the laundry, and clear the leaves in the gutter.

This makes it easy to feel comfortable allowing the firm to handle defense strategies for favorable outcomes, or consulting on old projects that have just been sitting on the backburner because you do not want to waste time on projects that do not add incremental value, or you simply want to complete a subsidiary merger to expand into a new market without start over from scratch with cross-promotional services the firm can handle any matter your client needs addressed.

Systems work. But how do you know, what you don’t know, if no one tells you what you should know? Try to say that five times fast. It is difficult, but it can be done. All it takes is your open-mind to change and to say, “Hello.”

**This is a sample writing only** This scenario is fictional and there was no representation that this is about particular campaign and BeFirst is not a CRM system. Writing is 1,094 words, which would take approximately 12-minutes to read. Based on an average reading time of 100-words per minute.