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Client Speak: The Do-or-Die Business Development Moment

By Allan Colman
February 25, 2009

At a recent presentation to the Virginias chapter of the Legal Marketing Association, we called attention to an odd paradox. If you think about the partners in your firm, you'll likely agree that most of them probably have the raw guts to look another human being in the eye and growl, “I'm going to sue your butt off!”

Yet those same lawyers are seemingly too timid to finish a discussion with a prospective client by politely asking, with the kindest intentions for all concerned, “Will you hire us?” Additionally paradoxical, this apparent attorney timidity extends ' not just to relative strangers unfamiliar with their talents and achievements ' but to existing clients as well. The lawyers may have produced good results. They've been responsive and maybe provided appreciated value-added service as well. Still they cannot quite bring themselves to ask for new work or cross-sell colleagues to folks they've known for years. Even Oliver Twist had the courage to beg a second bowl of gruel!

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